Iowa Highway 163 - History

History

In 1926, when U.S. Route 63 was formed, it followed the route of what became Iowa Highway 163. In 1938, the original U.S. Route 163 was deleted.

After U.S. 63 was extended north into Minnesota and Wisconsin in 1934, the route then became U.S. Route 163. In 1937, U.S. 163 was deleted and was replaced by Iowa Highway 163.

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.

In October 2009, Iowa 163 was extended along the completed freeway from Oskaloosa to Burlington, overlapping both U.S. Route 63 and U.S. Route 34.