U.S. Route 30 in Iowa

U.S. Highway 30
A map of Iowa's Interstates (blue) and US Highways (orange) with US 30 highlighted in red.
Route information
Maintained by Iowa DOT
Length:	330.266 mi (531.512 km)
Existed:	1926 – present
History:	Lincoln Highway from 1913–1928
Major junctions
West end:	US 30 at Blair, Nebr.
	I-29 at Missouri Valley US 59 / Iowa 141 at Denison US 71 at Carroll US 169 at Ogden I-35 at Ames US 65 at Colo US 63 at Toledo I-380 / US 218 at Cedar Rapids US 61 at De Witt US 67 at Clinton
East end:	US 30 at Fulton, Ill.
Location
Counties:	Harrison Crawford Carroll Greene Boone Story Marshall Tama Benton Linn Cedar Clinton
Highway system
United States Numbered Highway System List Special Divided Replaced Iowa Primary Highway System Interstate U.S. State Secondary Scenic ← I-29 Iowa 31 → ← Iowa 926 Iowa 934 →

U.S. Highway 30 (US 30) is a major east–west U.S. Highway which spans 330 miles (530 km) across the state of Iowa. It is the longest primary highway in the state and is maintained by the Iowa Department of Transportation (Iowa DOT). The route in Iowa begins at the Missouri River crossing at Blair, Nebraska, and ends at the Mississippi River crossing at Clinton. Along the way, it serves Denison and Carroll in western Iowa, Boone, Ames, and Marshalltown in central Iowa, and Tama, Cedar Rapids, and DeWitt in eastern Iowa. Cutting across the central portion of the state, US 30 runs within close proximity of the Union Pacific Railroad's Overland Route for its entire length.

US 30 was originally conceived as a part of the Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental highway in the United States. A route through Iowa was chosen because of the important link between Omaha, Nebraska, and Chicago, Illinois. As the U.S. Highway System came into being in the 1920s, and the Lincoln Highway became US 30, federal money started to pay for paving Iowa's dirt roads. By 1931, it had been paved across the entire state.

The route of the Lincoln Highway and US 30 has accommodated the changing needs of the traveling public. Early Lincoln Highway travelers were directed into many small towns as the route traveled 358 miles (576 km) across the state. Towards the middle of the 20th century, the route was straightened, bypassing most downtown areas and several towns altogether. More recently, long sections of US 30 have been upgraded to a four-lane expressway to meet the needs of increasing traffic. Since 2006, the highway has been designated an Iowa Heritage Byway by Iowa DOT, the first highway in the state with that distinction.