WEST End: Stoplight, US 63/Main Street, Traer, Tama County
Facing west on 8
This signage is inconsistent with standard DOT practice; only county roads have the "JCT" sign and arrows on the same assembly. (Actually, many Tama County roads have state-standard signage. This means 8 has less signs for the cross highway than many county roads.) It wasn't always like this. When 63 was detoured on 8 and 21 in 1997 and 1998 for reconstruction, signs were placed for the detour. When the detour was over, though, they weren't put back right. The sign on the left had lost its "JCT" and had a straight-then-left arrow, a remainder from the detour. I pointed this out to the DOT, and a crew was sent to fix it. Well, they got close. A diagram, originally drawn for the letter I wrote about it and now updated for this site, appears below. (Another result of the detour: A "JCT 21" sign now appears on WB 8/NB 21 that is incorrect, since you're already on 21. The sign sits on a pole that was erected to hold "JCT DETOUR 63" and was never removed.)
Facing north on 63
The slope of 63 is based on the railroad that ran through here, at the flat portion with the gravel on the side. The BP was an Amoco until October 2003.
Facing north on 63
Facing south on 63
The sign on the left is by one of two banks in town, First Community Bank The National Bank of Waterloo Homeland Bank Magna Bank Union Planters Bank Regions Bank. The other, Farmers Savings Bank & Trust, is visible in the background. (A true sign of small-town Iowa is that at least one thing in town includes the word "Farmers".)
Facing south on 63
First sign heading east on 8
At one time, before the streetlights were replaced with the antique style you see here in the fall of 1989, this first sign was on a standard light pole and did have an "EAST" above it. This sign is gone now; the first eastbound 8 shield is two blocks east.
Facing east on 8
This is the only leaving-town LGS on 8 because Dysart is just south of the highway. The 8/21 east junction LGS shows Dysart instead of Belle Plaine. In a strange sign-alignment mishap, the replacement for this sign leaves open space on the left side.
Surrounding area information: Traer Winding Stairs
Facing north, half a block west of the stoplight
It would be remiss to have a bunch of pictures in Traer without one of the famous Winding Staircase. It was built because the Star-Clipper building lot was only 18 feet wide instead of 20, and so an internal staircase would not let the presses fit. E.E. Taylor ordered the staircase from the Burlington Iron Works, and when originally placed in 1894, the same time the building was constructed, the stairs were against the outer wall. When the sidewalks were widened in 1916, the staircase went out with them. With 23 steps, 1 1/2 revolutions, and a weight of 1 ton, it is believed to be the only one of its kind over a public sidewalk. The Secretary of Agriculture at the turn of the 20th Century, James "Tama Jim" Wilson, was known to walk up the stairs to talk to Taylor in the years after his retirement. (Wilson also holds the record of longest-serving cabinet secretary, a record unlikely to be broken given that today nearly every Cabinet officer is replaced in a new administration.)
In 1975 an endloader struck the staircase, knocking off the bottom five steps. This made repair of the already-heavily-rusted stairs imperative. Not only did the Burlington Iron Works not want the project, the original molds had been destroyed. A welder from Voorhies took the job and, with his father, rebuilt the entire staircase. Nine years before, a story about the staircase was published in the Pacific edition of "Stars and Stripes" magazine, given to those serving in the armed forces, and also appeared in the Chicago Tribune and the Associated Press. [Source: Traer Quasquicentennial Book, 1998]
*Inaugural Highway End*
Highway history surprises in my own backyard
Even if you think the current and past generation of a route is straightforward, early 20th-century alignments may not be what you expect. I knew, for example, that the curve for US 63 south of Traer and the east-west road were not original, and that Toledo Street would have been so named because that was the road you took out of town to go to Toledo. But it was not until August 2009 that I saw not one, but three pictures at the Traer Museum that showed, beyond a doubt, that IA 59 once ran through Traer's Second Street business district.
This discovery created a new question: How did IA 59 get from downtown to Toledo Street? The most likely answer is by using Walnut Street, one block west of Main, which had the block across the railroad paved with brick until the late 1990s. The map above also shows a possible but unlikely route that gives 59 very little time in town. That path can't be ruled out because all available maps stop the line coming from the west at the intersection of gravel P Avenue and 180th Street/Toledo Street because that is the southwest corner of the city limits. It wasn't until the 2000s that Traer actually gave that part of P Avenue a city name, Westview Street.
As for the road heading east out of town, it's much the same situation. The late-1930s aerial photos show an older but not the original alignment, in part because a road paralleling the railroad tracks was built in two stages. The one museum photo with part of the Second/Main intersection visible, showing a 59 shield with an arrow pointing north, does not have an IA 8 shield beside it. For all I know, the shield could've been on the other side of the street, but the intersection also could have been one block north at the time. On the other hand, there are more businesses on Second east of Main, including a former gas station, and past that first block IA 8 (IA 58 in the 1920s) could have gone north to eventually head out of town on First, but it was Second Street all the way by 1935.
EAST End: Stop sign/T intersection, US 218, Benton County
Facing east on 8
Facing east on 8
Facing south on 218
Facing south on 218
Facing north on 218
Facing north on 218
*Inaugural Highway End*
All pictures by me: First-seventh and eleventh, 7/17/07; eighth, 11/29/01; ninth, 5/19/02; tenth, 6/29/02; 12th-17th, 7/15/07; diagram, 11/2/98 and 1/5/02; map, 8/14/09
Page created 11/24/01; last updated 8/15/09
