Snake Alley is a street located in Burlington , Iowa , which was built in 1894. In 2017, Ripley's Believe It or Not! recognized the street as "Unbelievably Crooked" and the #1 Odd Spot in their Odd Spots Across America Campaign.
7-800: Snake Alley may refer to: Snake Alley (Burlington, Iowa) , a sinuous street in Iowa, US Snake Alley Criterium , an annual bicycle race in Burlington Snake Alley Historic District , a largely residential area in Burlington Snake Alley (Taipei) , a market in Taipei, Taiwan "Snake Alley", a track on the 1985 album Decode Yourself by Ronald Shannon Jackson See also [ edit ] Crookedest street (disambiguation) Topics referred to by
14-433: A snake winding its way down the hill, and the name stuck. The alley originally provided a shortcut from Heritage Hill to the business district. Bricks were laid at an angle to allow horses better footing as they descended. Unfortunately, riding horses back up the alley often resulted in a loss of control at the top; for this reason, even to this day, Snake Alley remains a one-way street, with all traffic heading downhill. In
21-471: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Snake Alley (Burlington, Iowa) The physical limitations and steep elevation of Heritage Hill inspired the construction of Snake Alley in 1894. It was intended to link the downtown business district and the neighborhood shopping area located on North Sixth Street, of which Snake Alley is a one-block section. Three German immigrants conceived and carried out
28-540: The 1940s, writer Robert L. Ripley saw the street in person, and decided to add it to his Ripley's Believe It, Or Not! column, calling it " The Crookedest Street in the World ". The turns on Snake Alley are sharper than San Francisco’s famous Lombard Street , giving it a total of 1100° of turning from end to end, where Lombard Street's straighter curves total only 1000°. The alley is composed of limestone and blueclay bricks. The constantly changing slant from one curve to
35-456: The idea of a winding hillside street, similar to vineyard paths in France and Germany: Charles Starker, an architect and landscape engineer; William Steyh, the city engineer; and George Kriechbaum, a paving contractor. The street was completed in 1898, but was not originally named Snake Alley, as it was considered part of North Sixth Street; some years later, a resident noted that it reminded him of
42-582: The next necessitated a complicated construction technique to keep the high grade to the outside. Snake Alley consists of five half-curves and two quarter-curves over a distance of 275 feet (83.8 m), rising 58.3 ft (17.8 m), a 21% grade, from Washington Street to Columbia. The street is the site of an annual uphill bike race, the Snake Alley Criterium. There is also an art fair, the Snake Alley Art Fair, sponsored by
49-418: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Snake Alley . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Snake_Alley&oldid=902134617 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
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