Iowa 80 * USA - Billed as the world’s largest truck stop

A museum for trucking

(An aerial view of Iowa 80 gives you an idea of just how big the place is)
Walcott,Iowa,USA - Fleet Owner, by Skil Carr -September 12, 2008: -- ... What an amazing place – not only HUGE (covering 200 acres) but unique, too, with an on-site movie theatre, dentist office, barber shop, and plenty of home-style food provided by its gigantic restaurant to serve the 5,000 people who come through the truck stop every day. Even a fleet of its very own snow-removal equipment is ready to roll at a moment’s notice to deal with the big blizzards that hit Iowa from time to time... Not too shabby for a place that began as just a small, white enamel building with two diesel pumps, one lube bay and a tiny restaurant, located in the middle of Iowa cornfields...“Walcott Truckers Jamboree” (part show truck Mecca, part country fair) every year since 1979.[The Jamboree in full swing. Photo by Tom Schoening, Peterbilt of Des Moines]...[Just some of the antique trucks the Moon family has painstakingly restored over the years. Photo by Tom Schoening, Peterbilt of Des Moines]... These antique trucks were a personal passion of Bill Moon, and Delia told me he hoped to one day put them on display for truckers and the public alike as a kind of visual timeline, to remind everyone of the important roll trucking played in the nation’s history...[The new museum, in all of its glory. Photo by Tom Schoening, Peterbilt of Des Moines]... Well, that dream finally came true this year with the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum – a building comprised of 5,000 square-feet of display area to show off some 40 trucks at any one time (and also housing a gift shop, restrooms, and movie theatre) with another to the 20,000 square feet of storage space to house the hundreds of trucks painstakingly restored by the family. The whole shebang cost $1 million to build, but it was nothing but a true labor of love for the Moon family...[Iowa 80’s repair facilities keep truckers rolling]... Today, Iowa 80 is a brand and a corporate conglomerate, with the Iowa 80 truckstop now part of the Iowa 80 Group that also owns and operates Joplin Petro Truckstop in Joplin, MO; Oak Grove 70 Petro Truckstop, Oak Grove, MO; and the Kenly 95 TA Truckstop in Kenly, N.C... The company also operates special “Truckomats” truck wash centers in Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia, as well as the ubiquitous CAT Scale Company, too...I can’t wait to go visit Iowa 80’s one-of-a-kind trucking museum myself – that’s one trucking adventure I really look forward to...