Floodgap Roadgap's Summer of 6 -- U.S. Highway 6, Part 23: US 6 in Iowa (Dallas County Line to Des Moines; Dallas and Polk Counties)

Dallas county was named for George M. Dallas, U.S. Vice-President under James K. Polk, for whom the neighbouring county is named and the President at the time Iowa was organized. Another original 1846 county, it has a surprising 90,180 residents [2018] due to its proximity to Des Moines; its largest city proper, Waukee, only has about a sixth of the population, and many of its eastern cities with larger populations are actually partially within Polk. Its county seat is in Adel, which we will reach as well.

I-80/US 6

Fork 1: DallasCo F60 (Former US 6)

There isn't much along this route. Although we pass by Redfield, we never actually enter it from the current alignment, and it isn't at all clear if the highway ever did.

Fork 2: Interstate 80/US 6

We return to the present-day Interstate alignment.

Detour: John Wayne's Birthplace

My father would have had me shot, and then shot again, if I hadn't gotten a few touristy snaps of the Duke's former domicile. Born Marion Morrison in Winterset on May 26, 1907, he grew up in the Los Angeles area; after losing a football scholarship to the University of Southern California due to an injury he ended up working for the Fox Film Corporation as a prop boy and occasional bit part performer. His early small roles quickly became much larger after his 1930 appearance in The Big Trail (where his stage name was selected for him by director Raoul Walsh, though his nickname "Duke" came from his beloved Airdale terrier) and it was John Ford's 1939 epic Western Stagecoach that made him a national star. He starred in 142 films over his career, most of them Westerns, including classics such as Rio Bravo, The Searchers and True Grit, for which he received the Academy Award for Best Actor; his final role as a grizzled gunslinger battling cancer in 1976's The Shootist proved to be prophetic as he died of stomach cancer in 1979. Controversial then and now for his forthright opinions on race and social policy, including a notorious 1971 Playboy interview, a monument to him at USC was eventually removed in 2020 after student complaints though other namesakes, notably the John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, remain. Although politically active, he never ran for office despite multiple requests and joked an actor would never make it to the White House, though he supported his friend and fellow Republican Ronald Reagan's gubernatorial campaigns in 1968 and 1970. It was President Jimmy Carter, however, who awarded him both the Congressional Gold Medal shortly before his death and later a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980. He remains a perennially popular actor years after his death and was the only actor to appear in every edition of the annual Harris Poll of Most Popular Film Actors, including almost two consecutive decades in the top ten despite passing away over 15 years before.

Detour: The Bridges of Madison County

And now something for Mom. Madison county (which we briefly discussed in the last Part) is also well known for its covered bridges, built as such to protect the structural load-bearing portions from the elements. The bridges feature most prominently in the 1992 novel The Bridges of Madison County and its 1995 film adaptation, where the female protagonist has an affair with a photographer completing a study of the landmarks. There were 19 originally, built at various times between 1870 and 1885, but only six survive and are the largest extant group of such bridges west of the Mississippi. Arson is a perpetual threat and nearly claimed the most famous Cedar Bridge in 2002 and 2017 (it was rebuilt each time); it is the only one vehicles may still cross, and all of the bridges are now protected by camera surveillance. Obviously we don't have time for them all, and the first one we reached was the northernmost Hogback Bridge (1884), so we'll do that.

Fork 2 (Continued): US 6/US 169

We resume from I-80 north towards Adel. US 169 runs 966 miles from Virginia, MN to Tulsa, OK; we will meet its parent US 69 later in this Part.

US 6

As mentioned above, Polk is named for the 11th President of the United States, James K. Polk, who was the president at the time of Iowa's statehood in 1846. Polk's presidency is considered obscure but notable for his commitment to a single term in office and the completion of every major policy goal he set, including settlement with Great Britain over the Oregon Territory, a sweeping victory in the Mexican-American War and re-establishment of an independent Treasury. However, a slave owner himself, he failed to improve the worsening relationships between free and slave states and effectively forced new states admitted to the Union to choose sides. Today most historians view this outcome as a direct cause of the Civil War and his most enduring infamy. He died the summer after leaving Presidential office in 1849.

Polk county is Iowa's most populous county at 490,161 [2019] and its county seat is Des Moines, the state capital. Des Moines in French is "the monks;" the name was applied to the river, a tributary of the Mississippi, by early French explorers as a possible reference to the Trappists who built huts along the Mississippi's expansive shores. In 1843 a fort was built along the confluence of the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers to control the local tribes, persisting until they were forcibly moved to Oklahoma in 1846. The modern city was incorporated in 1851 and took its name from the fort, which in turn was named for the river. Almost half of Polk county's residents live in Des Moines with a population of 214,237 [2019] and like Omaha is considered a major centre of the American insurance industry. Recent years have also seen a surge in information technology from tech leaders such as Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard. It also retains substantial pull in national presidential politics, being one of the first caucuses of the primary campaign cycle and a must-win for many candidates.