Iowa Highway 163

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Iowa Highway 163

Length:

61 mi (98 km)

West end:

US 69 in Des Moines

East end:

US 63 in Oskaloosa

Iowa State Highways
< IA 160		IA 165 >

Iowa Highway 163 or Iowa 163 is a highway that travels from U.S. Route 69 in Des Moines to U.S. Route 63 in Oskaloosa. In Des Moines, 163 passes the Iowa State Fairgrounds.

Iowa 163 was created after U.S. Route 163 was decommissioned in 1938.

[edit] History

Iowa Highway 163 was originally a two-lane road. In the 1970s the highway was divided through Polk County east of Pleasant Hill. During the 1990s, the highway began to emerge from a two-lane highway to a four-lane highway as part of an ongoing project to create a continuous four-lane highway from Des Moines to Burlington. The segments of 163 in rural areas were converted to four lanes, but the main highway still went through the city centers. That would soon change as bypasses were constructed around the towns along the route. The first freeway bypass, with three interchanges, opened around Pella on October 17, 1994. Bypasses of Monroe, Iowa (with two interchanges), Prairie City, Iowa (with one interchange), Otley, Iowa (with two turnoffs), and Oskaloosa, Iowa (with two interchanges) were later constructed. The last four-lane segment opened between Pella and Oskaloosa on September 30, 1999. Today 163 is divided its entire length, except for short stretches of undivided highway in the Des Moines area.

[edit] Railroad notes

The Iowa Interstate Railroad used to run right alongside Iowa Highway 163 between Pella and Prairie City. The tracks crossed over the bypass around Pella, passed through Otley, and continued up to Prairie City and Des Moines. Between Otley and Prairie City there used to be a large string of tank cars parked on these tracks. The intersection of highway 163 and Jasper County Road F62 had an overhead crossing flasher signal. Today, the tracks have been removed, but the train bridge is still over the freeway bypass in Pella. The old crossing flasher at F62 stood until it was taken down in late 2002. The roadbed is still visible in some places, and in one spot along the roadbed an old wooden train bridge over a creekbed still exists. Once the railroad was decommissioned the local farmers were returned access to the land, many of them leveling the old railroad bed. In many places the original century-old wooden tressles were still in place and buried in the vicinity of newly placed metal culverts. The torn-up track roadbed continues all the way until past F62, where the tracks are still intact. Intermodal flatcars or airslide hopper cars are sometimes parked on this siding. This Iowa Interstate spur still continues into Prairie City and into Des Moines, where it rejoins the Iowa Interstate mainline between Davenport, Iowa, and Omaha, Nebraska.