Wheatland

WHEATLAND	Pop. 600 Alt. 683	Control, Head of main Street.
Clinton 33.7	Cedar Rapids 46.3	Two hotels, 2 garages, Local speed limit, 20 miles per hour, enforced. Railroads, C&NW, CM&St.P. Two banks, 30 general business places, express company, telephone company, 1 newspaper.
Concrete, Graded Dirt		L.H. Local Consul, Henry Guenther, First Trust & Savings Bank

- A Complete Official Road Guide of The LINCOLN HIGHWAY Fifth Edition (1924)

East of Wheatland.
Old U.S. Highway 30 with wooden posts and strung cable that was supposed to act as a guardrail. Don't you feel safer? Despite their somewhat romantic association, it's easy to see why they were replaced with steel and concrete.

Wheatland.
This is the same road, facing east. The preserved pony truss bridge described in the Calamus page is at the end of this road, just out of view. This is some old pavement. With the closing of the bridge, however, the only vehicular travel is local, so it will probably never be replaced. The 1913 Lincoln Highway probably came out of the woods center-frame and converged with this route. The lighter dots at center right are cars zooming by on new U.S. 30.

Wheatland.
The quiet corner of Pine and Wright Streets, where travelers turn west on their way out of Wheatland. This corner marks the start of the Clinton County "stairstep." The original 1913 Lincoln Highway often followed the established section lines, so the road would only run north/south or east/west - few diagonals or curves. Hence on a map the Highway resembled a set of stairs. Much of the Clinton stairstep, however, has been absorbed into the surrounding farmland, and you can still see the original grade of the road running through fields at right angles. A better - though also diminishing - example of a stairstep can be found in Harrison County in western Iowa.

West of Wheatland.
A favorite stretch of the original Lincoln Highway, and an east/west leg of the Clinton County stairstep. The Pine Hill Cemetery is to the right and behind. How do you know it's remote? It was bypassed, and then the bypass was bypassed.

From the Wheatland newspaper of 1921:
"At this time about half of the highway in Iowa is graveled and this year will see the graveling completed and many miles of concrete ready for traffic. Let us hope that the highway is complete before air travel becomes so popular that public interest and money is lured away from such earthly necessities as good roads."