Avenue of The Saints - History

History

The Avenue of the Saints was the idea of Mount Pleasant, Iowa businessman Ernest Hayes, who envisioned a four-lane highway between St. Paul and St. Louis in the 1980s. The Iowa Department of Transportation decided to study the idea in 1988. Several politicians endorsed the idea, including Mount Pleasant mayor (and future Iowa governor) Tom Vilsack, Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, and Congressmen David Nagle and Fred Grandy of Iowa and Dick Gephardt of Missouri.

By the end of 1989, four possible routes for the Avenue of the Saints were under consideration by the Federal Highway Administration. Two of the rejected routes would have followed U.S. Route 52 and U.S. Route 63 from St. Paul through Rochester, Minnesota, to Waterloo, Iowa.
The third rejected route would have followed U.S. Route 61 from St. Paul through La Crosse, Wisconsin, and Dubuque, Iowa, to Davenport, Iowa, and U.S. Route 67 from Davenport crossing the Mississippi River through western Illinois (Forgottonia) to Alton, Illinois and crossing the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers to St. Louis.

In 1990 the FHWA chose its route for the Avenue of the Saints:
The highway would follow the existing Interstate 35 from St. Paul to a point south of Clear Lake, Iowa; U.S. Route 18 to Charles City, Iowa; U.S. Route 218 to Cedar Falls, Iowa; Iowa Highway 58 and U.S. Route 20 around Cedar Falls and Waterloo, Iowa; Interstate 380 from Waterloo through Cedar Rapids to Interstate 80 near Coralville, Iowa and Iowa City, Iowa; U.S. 218 to Donnellson, Iowa; Iowa Highway 394 and Route B to Wayland, Missouri; and U.S. 61 and Interstate 64 from Wayland to St. Louis.

The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 made the Avenue of the Saints an official "high-priority corridor," and signs were put along the route by the end of the year. At that time the only four-lane segments were Interstates 35, 380, and 64; U.S. 20 around Waterloo; U.S. 218 from I-80 to Iowa Highway 22 near Riverside, Iowa; and two segments of U.S. 61 in Missouri (from La Grange to New London and from Bowling Green to St. Louis). The decision had also been made to build the Avenue of the Saints to expressway standards—with intersections at rural roads—rather than to full freeway standards as a cost-saving measure. Freeway segments would be built around cities that needed to be bypassed.

After the routing was approved, both Iowa and Missouri began constructing new four-lane segments. Iowa opened bypasses around Waverly (1998), Mason City (1999), Charles City (2000), Mount Pleasant (2001), and Donnellson (2004). A four-lane link between I-35 and I-380 was completed with the opening of a segment near Nashua in November 2003. Missouri completed four-lane segments from New London to Bowling Green in November 2000 and from Canton to La Grange in 2003.

In 2001 the Iowa Department of Transportation gave the Avenue of the Saints its own highway number: Iowa Highway 27. The number was added as an additional number to the existing routes; however, after the Donnellson bypass opened in 2004, Iowa 394 was decommissioned and Iowa 27 is now a standalone highway south of the split with U.S. 218.