June 5, 2022
From the WSJ:
Novelist Lan Samantha Chang on how a sprawling way station in Walcott, Iowa, is a destination in its own right A GROUNDING FORCE Iowa 80, which claims to be the world’s largest truck stop, opened in 1964 in Walcott, Iowa, about five hours east of Omaha, Neb., and three hours west of Chicago.
By Lan Samantha Chang / Photographs by KC McGinnis for The Wall Street Journal Jun. 3, 2022 12:04 pm ET SOME TIME AGO, when many novelists were settling in Brooklyn, I took a job in Iowa and moved to the Midwest. My husband Rob and I have been here now for 16 years, sending our native Iowan child to local schools, shopping at the local bookstore, trying out the local tomatoes. We’ve done our share of traveling, usually by plane; but in the past few years, I’ve discovered the perspective that can be found in seeing the world from the ground. I’ve learned a lot from taking the interstate to Walcott and spending time at Iowa 80: The World’s Largest Truck Stop.
Walcott, a town of about 1,500, is five hours east of Omaha, Neb., and three hours west of that immense hub of interstate transport, Chicago. The truck stop opened in 1964, a brainchild of businessman Bill Moon, who foresaw the value of its location after the interstate route was established during the Eisenhower years. Pretty much every trucker working between east and west will at some point drive Interstate 80 connecting Chicago to San Francisco. As one driver, Jim Caputo, put it, “there just aren’t that many ways across the Rockies.”
When I need to take a break from writing a novel, or to find a fresh outlook on the world at large, I get on Interstate 80 and exit at Walcott. Approaching the Iowa 80, it’s hard not to be struck by thoughts of size and scale. Iowa 80 claims its ranking as the biggest truck stop in the world is justified in every way that one might measure. The business occupies over 80 developed acres. There are 900 parking spots for full-size trucks and 250 for smaller vehicles. There’s a weighing station and a truck wash. Each day, 5,000 travelers, including many of the country’s 3.5 million truckers, pull off here to use the bathrooms, to find a snack, or, like myself, simply to gape at the 150,000 square-foot display of gifts, supplies and paraphernalia that are part of a trucker’s life. There are quantities of heavy-duty boots, hefty raincoats and ponchos. Headlights, reflectors, grills and multicolored nut covers. “Caution: Wide Load” signs in dozens of shapes and sizes. It’s a life I know little about but depend upon for almost everything I eat or use. Customers are also interested in miniature and full-size guitars, machine-embroidered hats, jackets, lawn ornaments, ghillie suits, black bear figurines and dyed raccoon caps. There are truck-themed items for children, including toy trucks, stuffed trucks and truck snow globes. Among the variety of black T-shirts are several with bright truck art and the words, “Stay loaded.”
Federal laws require truckers to drive, at maximum, 11 hours at a stretch within a 14-hour period each day. Iowa 80 offers restaurant franchises as well as a large “traditional” restaurant with a menu and a deep buffet. There are also showers, a laundry, a workout room, a library and a theater; there’s a barber, a chiropractor, even a dentist. I’m not the first person to compare this truck stop to a small, bustling city—a city that is, by necessity, open 24 hours a day, a city whose occupants are always coming and going. The management can’t control who drives in and out. They work to contain the same problems that exist in any city. And like a local chamber of commerce, they hold special events, such as the annual Truckers Jamboree, with a Truck Olympics and a Truck Beauty Contest, starring trucks.
Iowa 80 is also a paean of sorts to truckers, trucks and trucking. The massive retail space features a “Super Truck Showroom” large enough to contain free-standing vehicles, polished to gleaming, including the “Cornpatch Cadillac,” a yellow Peterbilt with a climb-in cab; an Army Jeep; a bright-red 1947 Dodge Pickup and a tractor trailer with a colorful mural of I-80 stretching from Teaneck, New Jersey to San Francisco. Each day, 5,000 travelers, including many of the country’s 3.5 million truckers, pull off Interstate 80 and stop by Iowa 80. ‘To use the bathrooms, to find a snack, or, like myself, simply to gape at the 150,000- square-foot display of gifts, supplies and paraphernalia that are part of a trucker’s life,' writes Lan Samantha Chang.
Among the vast array of merchandise are miniature and full-size guitars, machine-embroidered hats, lawn ornaments and truck-themed items for children.
Federal law requires truckers to drive, at maximum, 11 hours at a stretch within a 14-hour period each day. For owner-operators taking their breaks on the road, Iowa 80 offers restaurant franchises as well as a large “traditional” restaurant with a menu and a buffet. Truckers can stop at Iowa 80 to see a chiropractor or a dentist.
There's also a barber shop, laundry, a workout room, a library and a theater.
‘I’m not the first person to compare this truck stop to a small, bustling city,’ writes Ms. Chang, ‘A city that is, by necessity, open 24 hours a day, a city whose occupants are always coming and going.’
The I-80 Trucking Museum contains row after row of historic trucks, including this 1944 White WA-114, and other assorted artifacts. 'Gazing at a collection of antique toy trucks and the brightly lit array of petroliana, including old-style pumps bearing lit names of gasoline companies that I’ve never heard of, I have the sense of stopped time.' You can spend hours at the I-80 Trucking Museum, two enormous display rooms containing row after row of historic trucks, including a lovingly restored 1903 Eldridge, built in Des Moines, Iowa, and capable of going all of 10 mph. Gazing at a collection of antique toy trucks and the brightly lit array of petroliana, including old-style pumps bearing lit names of gasoline companies that I’ve never heard of, I have the sense of stopped time. For a moment, it’s possible to see the crowded parking lots, the busy showroom, as the most recent iteration of a now-flourishing culture whose future is unclear. I’m not the first person to compare this truck stop to a small, bustling city—a city that is, by necessity, open 24 hours a day.
I had the same sense of stopped time when my husband took me to the Mother’s Day buffet at the Iowa 80 Kitchen. We loaded up at the buffet, chatting over the pot roast, ham, turkey, mac ‘n’ cheese, mashed potatoes, corn, stuffing, wild rice, fried chicken, fried shrimp, barbecue shrimp, salad and desserts. (“I threw my back out at one of these,” a fellow traveler confided to Rob while leaning deep into the buffet for a slice of apple pie.) It took me a while to realize no one was on their cellphone. It was the same when I came back a week later. Five truckers sat at a round table, swapping stories. At a booth, a food scientist from California and his colleague were transporting scientific equipment to a lab outside Chicago. No one at the restaurant seemed to be in a hurry.
From a plane it’s possible to see the continent at a glance. But from the ground, you come by a more profound sense of its human dimensions and the thundering immensity of its cargo. At the Trucking Museum, I gain a new reference point for the range and magnitude of our appetites and for the invisible power of transport. My mind stretches to encompass all of it.
5 Things to See at the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum Sean Rose of Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines takes a picture with a vintage Jeep. 1903 Eldridge. The oldest truck in the museum, and possibly one of the first trucks ever to be manufactured in the U.S. 1929 REO Speedwagon EX. The band “REO Speedwagon,” popular in the 1980s, was named when band founder and keyboardist Neal Doughty first saw the words written on a blackboard in a History of Transportation class. 1930 Studebaker Wrecker S Series. This is a gorgeously restored towing truck built by a long-defunct but still beloved American manufacturer based in South Bend, Ind. 1979 Jeep J-10 Honcho. The J series was Jeep’s longest-running pickup series. “Honcho,” or “Boss,” refers to the truck’s eye-catching, yellow-striped trim package. 1986 GMC General. GMC’s largest, and final, conventional cab truck, the General was manufactured in Pontiac, Michigan, and phased out in 1987.
Lan Samantha Chang is the author of ‘The Family Chao’ (W.W. Norton) and three other works of fiction. She is director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
I think I will add it to my trip out in three weeks.... Did you go there?