If you find yourself on Interstate 80 near the Mississippi River, the Iowa 80 truck stop is a must-see. Located in the town of Walcott, it’s billed as the world’s largest truck stop, and it has a large museum full of vintage trucks that’s about to get even bigger.
The Quad Cities Business Journal reports that the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum just broke ground on a 25,000-square-foot expansion, bringing the total space to 121,000 square feet when completed. Construction is expected to be finished by this fall, according to the truck stop’s owners, and won’t affect operating hours while it’s happening.
The museum houses all sorts of trucking history, from a host of vehicles to signage and more, but there isn’t enough room in the current facility for the entire collection. Some of the trucks Iowa 80 hopes to put on display for the first time include four Sterlings dating from the 1920s to the 1940s that were added to the collection in 2024, and a recently-restored 1948 Mack EWSQ armored truck from Wells Fargo.
“The collection of trucks and trucking memorabilia has outgrown the current facility,” said Lee Meier, marketing manager of Iowa 80 Group, the truck stop’s owner, in an interview with the Quad Cities Business Journal when the expansion was announced last December. Iowa 80 itself sits on a 220-acre site, so there’s plenty of room for the museum to grow.
Opened in 2008 and last expanded in 2021, the museum is built around the collection of Bill Moon, who founded Iowa 80 in 1964. Moon started his collection in the 1980s and wanted to open a museum to publicly display it, but he died before seeing the project through. It was completed in Moon’s memory by his family, who still run Iowa 80.
Over 100 vehicles are currently on display, ranging in age from an 1890-vintage horse-drawn wagon to a 1996 Freightliner COE tractor. Some of the coolest pieces include the 1978 Kenworth Bandag Bandit Bonneville speed record rig and a 1911 Walker Electric Model 43, a reminder that electric trucks are nothing new. Even if you’re not a trucker, it sounds like a great place to stop and stretch your legs during a long road trip.
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