What is on these pages?

Active state highways are included in white tables with green headers above each section. Highway markers are also included to the left of the listings; they do not appear if the route is not signed (e.g., much of the 900 series).

	Active route listings
	Length (in Iowa): How long the route is in miles and kilometers. (To convert other distances, multiply the number of miles by 1.609 to get the distance in kilometers.) For routes less than ten miles long, distances are given in tenths; otherwise, they are rounded to the nearest whole mile or kilometer. Western/northern terminus: Where the highway begins (or enters Iowa) from the west or north Eastern/southern terminus: Where the highway ends (or enters Iowa) from the east or south Neighboring states' highway pages are linked if the highway crosses into another state; for some sites, you may have to scroll down to find the specific highway number. For spur routes that lead from another state-maintained highway into a a town or a state park, I also include the county road that the route continues as from its endpoint. Terminus photos: Where applicable, these are links to pages that contain photos of highway termini, hosted on Jeff Morrison's site. Entrance photos: These are links to pages on Jeff Morrison's site that are similar to terminus photos, but show the points where Interstate and US highways enter Iowa. Counties: A list of the counties, from north to south or west to east, that the route goes through. Links to the Iowa DOT's legal description for the route in that county are provided if available. Cities along route: A list of incorporated cities along the route. I only include a city on this list if the road runs through the city limits, or if the city limits end at that road or its right of way. For Interstates, freeways, and expressways with interchanges, the city limits must run within one mile of the route and the city must be served by its own interchange. City limit data is from the Iowa DOT's Open Data page. NHS (US and appropriate state highways only): Which segments of the route are parts of the National Highway System, including principal arterials that were added to the NHS by the MAP-21 act in 2012. Further information can be found on the Federal Highway Administration and Iowa DOT sites. Commercial and Industrial Network (US and appropriate state highways only): Which segments of the route are parts of the state's Commercial and Industrial Network of highways adopted in 1988. More information can be found on this map from the Iowa DOT. Freeway segments: The length and starting and ending points of any freeway segments. To qualify, the road must be controlled-access with interchanges and no at-grade intersections. Expressway segments: The length and starting and ending points of any expressway segments. To qualify, the road must be a divided highway that is at least five miles long (or part of a multiplex or a future expressway corridor), but they can have at-grade intersections as well as interchanges. Short segments of divided highways in cities are not included. Exit lists: Links to any online lists of exits for that highway, where appropriate. Multiplexes: Any segments where two or more routes share the same road. (Concurrencies with business routes are not included unless the business route designation is tied to an unsigned state highway number.) (Note: Freeway and expressway segments are included for all US highways; they are only included with state highways where appropriate. They are also not included with Interstates, for obvious reasons.)
	History
	Designated: The approximate date when that segment of highway was designated. Paving history: Notes which segments were paved at designation and which segments, by year, were upgraded from gravel, dirt, or bituminous ("dustless" gravel) surfaces to paved surfaces. Alignment changes resulting from pavings are listed here. Major alignment changes: A list of significant relocations for that highway. An alignment change is included if it meets one of the following criteria: It is more than 10 miles long It was moved more than one mile from its old alignment It replaced another state highway, or another state highway replaced the old segment It was extended or truncated by more than 3 miles Many early alignment changes were done as newer paved roads were replacing older gravel and dirt roads. Alignment changes resulting from four-lane highways are listed under "Upgrades" below. Upgrades: A list of completion dates of freeway and expressway segments, where appropriate. Information is based mostly on (1) maps and (2) various newspaper articles.
	Notes
	Other noteworthy information can be found in this section.

Where applicable, all known branches of the route (past and present, including suffixed and business routes) are listed at the end of the individual route listings. Information on these is based on maps and personal observations.

Decommissioned routes are listed in gray tables with dark gray cells and italicized headings. Some of them appear with Roman numerals after them, e.g., IA 27 (II); they refer to the specific incarnation of that route (in this case, the second version of IA 27). Each incarnation of a highway has its own route listing. No Roman numerals are listed in route listings if it is referring to the current or only incarnation of a highway.

Dates of designation, decommissioning, and opening are my best estimates based on maps, newspaper articles, and other sources that contributors and I have seen. In most cases, exact dates are listed if:

• A road was one of the original state highways, which became official on July 1, 1920.
• A road was one of the original US highways or a state highway affected by the designation of an original US highway. Signage of the US highway system was completed on October 16, 1926, according to the Des Moines Register of the following day.
• A road was affected by the "Great Renumbering," which was approved by the Iowa State Highway Commission on March 20, 1968, and took effect on January 1, 1969.
• A road was shortened or decommissioned as a result of legislation passed in the spring of 2003 (the transfers became official on July 1, 2003).
• A route number was affected by the opening of a freeway or other realigned segment (if the opening date is known).
• An opening date was mentioned in a newspaper article.
• An effective date or transfer of jurisdiction date is listed in that highway's legal description.
• In addition, Jeff Morrison has done some extensive research at the Iowa DOT's library in Ames where he looked through microfilm of Highway Commission meeting notes from the 1920s and 1930s. In most cases, the dates listed for highway commissionings are the dates that the Highway Commission approved the minutes for the meetings where that number was assigned.

When maps and route logs are consulted, if something changes between one year's map or log and the next year's, then I list the change as having occurred in the previous year (i.e., if the 1971 map had something that the 1970 map didn't have, the change happened in 1970).

Some unfamiliar terms and abbreviations may appear in the listings; the misc.transport.road FAQ has sections that define many of them. I use state postal abbreviations to refer to state highways: IA=Iowa, IL=Illinois, MN=Minnesota, MO=Missouri, NE=Nebraska, SD=South Dakota, and WI=Wisconsin.

Sources of information:

• Official state and county highway maps published by the Iowa State Highway Commission from 1919 through 1975, and from the Iowa Department of Transportation from 1976 through the present. Federal aid highway system maps from 1934, 1935, 1938, and 1941 were also consulted. Most of these maps were found at the map collections of the University of Iowa and the State Historical Society of Iowa's libraries in Iowa City and Des Moines as well as public libraries in several other cities.
• Iowa Primary Road System Weekly Service Maps, as published in the Des Moines Register on a weekly basis during travel seasons in the 1920s.
• Various commercial maps and road atlases (Rand McNally, Gousha, DeLorme, etc.), including maps distributed by oil companies
• The Iowa DOT's annual Iowa Primary Road Sufficiency Log publication, the primary source for road lengths (most lengths are rounded) and highway data during times when state transportation maps were not published annually. The Government Publications collection on the third floor of the University of Iowa's Main Library has logs from 1973-76 and from 1979 to the present.
• The book Transportation in Iowa: A Historical Summary, by William H. Thompson (1989), a source for some historical information
• Various other Highway Commission/DOT publications
• Newspaper articles
• Personal experience
• Contributions from readers of this page, misc.transport.road, and the AARoads forum, via e-mail or newsgroup/message board postings

In addition, the Iowa DOT's current highway improvement plan has been a major source in finding out information about the state's expressway construction projects.

Highway shield images on this site were created with David Kendrick's Shields Up program; they were modified, using Windows Paint and Adobe PhotoDeluxe, and compared to photos of actual highway signs to make them look realistic.

The maps on the local highway pages were created with Greenstreet Draw 3.5 after putting together a composite of street maps from the U.S. Census Bureau's American FactFinder maps. I used Draw 3.5 for all lines (including roads) and text, another photo editing program to shrink the images, and Windows Paint to paste the shields (which are based on the ones I use for the exit lists) onto the map.

I am not guaranteeing that this information is 100% accurate. If anyone has any corrections to the data on this site, please let me know.

About the author

I was born in Iowa City and have lived my whole life in Iowa. I grew up in Davenport and graduated from North High School in 1994; from there I spent two years at Scott Community College before transferring to the University of Iowa, where I graduated with a B.A. in Geography in December of 1999. I moved to Cedar Rapids in mid-2000 and spent two years there before moving to Des Moines in August 2002. I currently live in Ankeny and work in the technical support business, which keeps me busy for at least eight hours each day.

During the fall of 1997 I started putting a highway log together and did extensive research on past highway alignments through old road maps at the U of I's Main Library. I launched the Iowa Highways Page on January 10, 1998, as part of Jason's Pad on the Web. Then came Freeway Junctions of the Heartland and the Photo Gallery, which has grown in leaps and bounds since I got my own car in the fall of 1998. As time passed I phased out my non-highway-related pages to focus on the highway content.

You can see which Iowa counties I have visited here, and which highways I have clinched here.

Back to the Iowa Highways Page