Iowa 80: World's Largest Truck Stop RoadyGoat
1964Off I-80 at Exit 284 in Walcott sprawls Iowa 80, billed as the world's largest truck stop, a kind of small town built for truckers. Bill Moon, a Standard Oil regional manager, bought the land and opened the original stop in 1964 as the interstate was being built. Today it covers about 220 acres, roughly three times an average truck stop, with a 67,000-square-foot main building, parking for around 900 trucks, and some fifteen diesel pumps. Inside it offers a restaurant and buffet, a food court, a movie theater, a dentist, a chiropractor, a barber, even a chapel. Across the lot, the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum, opened in 2000 and free to enter, displays more than 100 antique trucks and vintage gas pumps Moon spent decades collecting. Around 5,000 visitors roll through every day.
