The Iowa Highways Photo Gallery
Quad Cities area
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Note: All Mississippi River bridge photos that were previously seen here are now on the Mississippi River Bridges page.
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Instead of the standard "NEXT _ EXITS" sign, travelers on I-80 are greeted by big green signs listing each exit in Davenport. |
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Here is a similar sign on westbound I-280, approaching the bridge across the Mississippi. |
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The end of IA 130 in northwest Davenport, which also shows the common Iowa practice of including the interchange number at Interstate junctions. IA 130 (which used to be IA 74, and then IA 150) once ran all the way into downtown Davenport. (See Jeff Morrison's IA 130 terminus photo page for photos of IA 130's ends, past and present.) |
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This is the intersection of River Drive and Brady Street in downtown Davenport; about half a mile after US 61 joins US 67, US 67 leaves US 61 and crosses the Centennial Bridge into Illinois. One thing to note is that the two US 61 route numbers are in different FHWA-series fonts; newer signs tend to use the thinner Series C digits (found on the northbound US 61 shield) while the sign on the left uses Series D. One note in the above photo, though: southbound US 61 does not join US 67 at Brady Street; it instead joins the route at Harrison Street, two blocks to the west. This is due to the fact that Harrison and Brady are both one-way streets through much of Davenport. |
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This US 67 trailblazer is a bit misleading; it's actually signed as "south" but the arrow is really pointing to the north. |
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This is because about a block north of River Drive (approaching 2nd Street), US 67 makes a 180-degree turn and heads southward across the Centennial Bridge into Illinois. (Yes, that was the Centennial Bridge in the background of the photo before this one.) Before the tolls were dropped in May 2003, "TOLL BRIDGE" was present in the green space on this sign. |
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And the same situation exists coming off the bridge. Before 2003, northbound US 67 ran southward along Gaines Street for about a block, after making a 180-degree turn, before intersecting River Drive. After 2003, US 67 was moved off Gaines Street and onto 2nd Street for a block. As 2nd Street continues into downtown Davenport, US 67 turns onto Western Avenue... |
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...to intersect US 61 one block west of where it used to. The newly-renovated John O'Donnell Stadium (home of the Swing of the Quad Cities baseball team) and the Centennial Bridge are in the background. |
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South of 2nd Street, Gaines Street becomes US 67 as it crosses the Centennial Bridge into Rock Island, IL. All of the US 67 shields around here are larger than they usually are for some reason. |
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In 1984, US 61 north of downtown was re-routed onto two one-way streets: southbound traffic was re-routed onto Welcome Way and Harrison Street, and northbound traffic remained on Brady Street. These overhead signs are on Brady Street (northbound US 61) approaching Kimberly Road (US 6). |
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These similar signs are on eastbound Kimberly Road (US 6) approaching Welcome Way (southbound US 61). |
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Although state highway junctions are seldom noted on city streets (except when freeway interchanges are involved), these US 61 trailblazers at Locust and Harrison Streets are an exception. (Northbound US 61, Brady Street, is two blocks to the east.) Similar signs are also found on 53rd Street, 35th Street, and Central Park Avenue. |
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The first time I spotted a Clearview mile marker was along southbound US 61/Harrison Street, just south of Lombard Street, in July 2007. |
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This assembly on US 61 at the east end of IA 22 shows markers for the Hiawatha Pioneer Trail and Great River Road. In October 2003 the Great River Road was dedicated as one of "America's Byways," and signs noting that can be found throughout the entire length of the Great River Road. |
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This is the infamous "truck-eating" railroad overpass along Harrison Street (southbound US 61) entering downtown Davenport. |
 
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Warning signs for the "truck-eating bridge" can be found as much as eight miles away, urging through trucks to take I-80 and I-280 around town -- although some truck drivers simply ignore them. |
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In recent years an "overheight vehicle detour", following 5th Street to Western Avenue (where the railroad crossing is at-grade) has been posted just before the overpass. |
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Although they look like math division symbols inside diamonds, these signs near Central High School were installed in 2000 to sense any vehicles who are too high for the "truck-eating" bridge. Despite these efforts, accidents involving the bridge continue to happen, leading to talk of relocating US 61 around Davenport and redesignating the exising 61 as a business route (although nothing has happened yet). |
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This sign on River Drive at Harrison Street warns northbound traffic of the upcoming low-clearance railroad overpass. |
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The annual Bix 7 run, held on the last Saturday in July, follows Brady Street and Kirkwood Boulevard. In 1999 Kirkwood was given the honorary name of "Bix 7 Boulevard", and signs like this are found along the road. |
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This marker for the World War White Way Memorial Highway is near the foot of the Government Bridge. It was dedicated in honor of Marion Crandell, a Cedar Rapids native and Davenport French teacher who was the first American woman to be killed in active service during World War I (while volunteering in France). After years of neglect, the restored sign was rededicated in March 2001. (Photographed by Vern Wriedt, leader of the restoration effort; he also maintains the Monuments of Davenport site, which is definitely worth a visit.) |
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Tenth-mile markers like this one were put up on the shoulders of I-74 during the spring of 1999 to assist mobile phone users in reporting emergencies along the highway. Similar markers can be found in Des Moines, Sioux City, and Council Bluffs. |
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Before 2003, the signs at I-80 exit 298 pointed Peoria-bound traffic to eastbound I-74. This would have brought traffic through Bettendorf and Moline, which can be a headache during rush hours. I-74 also makes two turns, including one onto a 25 MPH exit ramp, before leaving the Quad Cities area. "Peoria" was stripped from those signs in 2003 as construction was underway on the Mississippi and Rock River bridges. In 2004 these new signs were put up so Peoria-bound traffic can follow I-80 east to the next junction with I-74 -- where traffic doesn't have to make any turns. |
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This sign bridge is at the interchange of I-74 and US 67, looking northward along 14th Street (which the I-74 off-ramp becomes after crossing State Street, which carries southbound US 67). Note the use of "Illinois" as the destination for northbound US 67. One thing to note is that US 67 becomes an east-west route through Bettendorf and Davenport (even though it's still signed north-south) while I-74 runs north-south through the area (but is signed east-west) because of the east-west turn that the Mississippi River makes in the Quad Cities. |
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Bettendorf has a roundabout of its own now; in late 2002 the intersection of Middle Road and 53rd Avenue was converted to one. The extension of 53rd Avenue between Devils Glen Road and Middle Road had yet to open in this June 2003 photo, which was taken heading north on Middle Road. |
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This sign on County Road F55 (top) near the John Deere Davenport Works points out that "Old Highway 61" is just east of the interchange with US 61. "Old 61" actually refers to Scott Park Road, which received its name in the mid-1980s after Scott County adopted its E-911 rural road naming system. Most of Scott Park Road was US 61 before the freeway was built in 1982, but part of the road between the south city limits of Eldridge and F55 was built on a new alignment. The real old US 61 (bottom, looking west at the junction with F55) is west of the interchange and dead-ends in both directions. More photos of this area can be found at the IA 956 terminus photo page on Jeff Morrison's site; Scott Park Road was an unsigned state highway until it was turned over to the appropriate local jurisdictions in early 2003. |
 
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Sometime before mid-2007, the signs for the F55 interchange along northbound US 61 were replaced with new signs in Clearview. The original signs split the exit into Exits 124A (F55 west) and 124B (F55 east), but the new advance sign (top) now has one exit tab that is center-aligned to straddle the two halves of the sign. The new exit sign (bottom) omits the exit numbers altogether. |
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This sign on 1st Street north of Le Claire Road in Eldridge marks the beginning of the Cody Trail, which winds through northern Scott County before ending at US 67 in Le Claire. |