Lang
2/25/24
Portions of Highway 6 in and near West Liberty will be temporarily closed on Monday morning for the relocation of a historic building.
The Muscatine County Sheriff’s Office says crews will move the old Stagecoach Inn from its current site on Highway 6 just west of West Liberty to its new home in Heritage Park. Both eastbound and westbound lanes of Highway 6 will be closed starting around 8:30 a.m. for the move. Monday morning commuters are advised to seek an alternate route.
The Stagecoach Inn opened in 1842 as the Beers and St. John Company Coach Inn, as the company had just been granted the U.S. Mail delivery contract between Muscatine…then known as “Bloomington”…and Iowa City. Iowa City had just been founded as the territory of Iowa’s capital, and the shortest stagecoach route from boat traffic along the Mississippi River was via Muscatine. The inn was a stopover point between the two cities. The newly-established route would eventually evolve into Highway 6.
The Beers and St. John Company Coach Inn was sold and turned into a private residence with the establishment of a railroad route to Iowa City in 1855. It was entered into the National Historical Registry in 2016.