(1930-July 1, 2003)
WEST End: City limits of Van Horne, Benton County
Facing west on 199
Highway 199 was the only east-west Benton County spur (363 doesn't count). Alternately, there could have been a north-south double spur between Van Horne and Blairstown intersected in the middle by US 30. Van Horne has the high school for the Benton Community school district (which also includes Elberon in Tama County, oddly enough).
According to Jason Hancock's web site, the five incremental Benton County spurs (198 through 202) were all created in 1930. The DOT must have gone on a signing spree or something. :-) Of these, four remained until 2003, with the 202 spur to Shellsburg discontinued. Similar signing spurts were in Marshall County (233, 234, 235) and in Warren County (205, 206, 207).
Facing east on 199
See below for the accuracy of this LGS. However, it did seem that MM 1 showed up rather quickly, possibly meaning that 199 went into Van Horne before 1980.
EAST End: Stop sign, US 218 and E44, Benton County
Facing east on 199
Facing east on 199
Photo by Jason Hancock
LGS in background of above picture
While the DOT signs indicate Vinton is 11 miles away, the Benton County sign on westbound E44 says Vinton is 10 miles away.
Facing north on 218
Photo by Jason Hancock
Or, again, alternately, there could have been a double spur from Van Horne to Newhall intersected by 218. Benton County is horrendous at signing county roads at intersections; no intersection of a US highway and one of the spurs displays any county road signs, although the Hiawatha Pioneer Trail is signed. (This has since been somewhat rectified after the Second Great Decommissioning.) Here, even though you can turn right...
...there's a double arrow at the end of 199(!), because the roads are slightly offset. The pole under the 199 is a stop sign.
Facing south on 218
Between 1930 and 1938, this intersection was just three miles north of 218's south end at US 30.
The east end of 199 and the north end of 287 are equidistant from the confluence of 42 degrees north, 92 degrees west. The confluence, located in the middle of Section 15 of El Dorado Township (T83N-R10W), is about 1.6 miles away from both - in 199's case, 1.5 miles east and .5 mile south on a fence between two fields.
Last seen: 2003
Pictures by Jason Hancock: Fourth and sixth, 12/2/01
Pictures by me: Top three, fifth, and seventh, 5/20/03; bottom, 5/25/02
Page created 2/23/02; last updated 1/24/04