Muscatine County, Iowa
	Although the original Route 6 came down this main Street of West Liberty, it now bypasses the downtown by a few blocks. Many traditional downtown businesses have abandoned West Liberty, but a few remain including the theatre. Two blocks from this scene is a turkey processing plant that employs a large number of immigrants from Mexico. The red brick building at the right is a Mexican restaurant, one of several Mexican businesses now in the downtown area. (March 1997 photo)
In the past West Liberty was an important railroad junction at the meeting of east-west and north-south lines of the Rock Island Railroad. For passengers, the Rockets to Des Moines, Omaha, and Denver passed through here. So did the Zepher Rocket, a train connecting St. Louis with the Twin Cities that used tracks of both the Rock Island and the CB&Q. August 2004 photo.
	A significant old road segment along Route 6 is this "hard road" extending west a couple of miles from Moscow to the Cedar River. At the river the old route meets piers of an 1885 wagon bridge. According to Dave Darby, Executive Director of the Iowa Route 6 Tourist Association, the road was paved between 1912 and 1915, making it one of the very early paved highway segments to survive to the present. In the mid-1920s it became part of U. S. Route 32, the predecessor to Route 6 in Iowa. A year before 6 replaced 32 in 1931, a new road and bridge south of Moscow replaced this path to and across the Cedar. So, Route 6 never went through Moscow.(March 1997 photo)

Here is the wagon bridge that crossed the Cedar River between Moscow and Atalissa. According to Dave Darby the bridge was condemned by the state in 1942 and removed shortly thereafter. Up until 2008 all of its piers remained, but two of them were destroyed by the massive flood in June of that year. The right photo shows one of the bridge piers on the Moscow side of the river in 1997. (left photo, courtesy of Dave Darby)

An unfortunate accident on the "new" 1930 bridge that carried Route 6 across the Cedar River between Moscow and Atalissa. (photo courtesy of Dave Darby)

Another nice old road segment extends eastward from Moscow for a few miles. This bridge survived on that road until after March 1997, when this photo was taken, but was replaced sometime thereafter.

Between Moscow and Wilton, at the intersection of Route 6 and Iowa Highway 38, was Hatfield's Corner, which served travellers and truckers alike. In the early 1960s, Interstate 80 opened jhust four miles to the north; no sign if Hatfield's remains today. Photo courtesy of Dave Darby.

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