NORTH End: Stop sign/T intersection,
IA 9, Osceola County
Facing north on 237
Were the sign to include towns actually on Highway
9, it would read "<- Rock Rapids 32; Spirit Lake 19 ->",
the longest distance on a highway in Iowa without towns.
Facing north on 237
Facing east on 9
Facing west on 9
Facing west on 9
SOUTH End: Downtown Ocheyedan, Osceola
County
Facing north on 237
This is an educated guess on 237's south end. South
of here the road becomes narrower. This is facing north on 237's
first block. The north end is in the deep background.
Pickup, pickup, pickup, pickup, van, pickup, pickup,
pickup ... your quintessential elevator parking.
Surrounding area information: Ocheyedan
Mound
Facing north-ish
Just northeast of the intersection of L58 and A22,
approximately where the "O" in "Ocheyedan"
is on current maps, is Ocheyedan Mound. White rocks spell out
"stc"; their meaning is unknown. A large wooden sign
with engraved letters reads:
"The mound is a kame of glacial origin. Kames
are mounds composed of completely stratified sand & gravel
deposited by glacial meltwater streams where the streams descended
into cravasses in the ice. This occurred during the final stages
of ice melting and disappearance of the glaciers over ten thousand
years ago."
View of Ocheyedan from the mound
This used to be the highest point in Iowa. In those two words
- "used to" - is a strange story of how the highest
point in Iowa ceased to be the highest point in Iowa. Maps prior
to about 1970 - the 1968 map shows it - label Ocheyedan Mound
as the highest point in Iowa, 1675 feet. (On the official map,
the dot was southeast of where the mound actually is.) By the
1972 map, however, the mound's mark had been removed with no replacement.
On the 1976 map, the "highest point" had moved northwest
and dropped five feet! The new "highest point"
was about smack dab in the middle of Iowa's portion of a triangle
formed by IA 9, IA 60, and US 59. It wasn't even done moving then;
maps 1977-1999 mark it on the right (east) side of County
Road L44 while 2000-present maps mark it on the left (west)
side, approximately the center of a triangle formed by IA 9, IA
60, and L44. The maps simply say, "Highest Point in Iowa
- 1670 ft." This point, unlike the mound, is on private property,
a farm northeast of Sibley.
How, pray tell, does a ten-thousand-year-old hill shrink? My
speculation lies with modern scientific equipment, better at determining
exact elevations. Topographic maps indicate Ocheyedan Mound is
1613 feet. Since Ocheyedan Mound was no longer Iowa's highest
point, the place with that honor did not have a name. On March
23, 1998, Gov. Terry Branstad signed House
Joint Resolution 2004, naming the place "Hawkeye Point."
