Monarch Butterfly Tribute Coming to Central Iowa Bridges

(Ames, IA) -- Interstate-35 states have dubbed the highway as the Monarch Highway because of butterfly migration patterns. An artist is planning to use colored brick, to create monarch-inspired art at six central Iowa bridges. The veneer brickwork will be on the main supporting pier supporting bridges, between Ankeny and Ames. The first one is expected to open this week near Elkhart. The others will be constructed over the next six or seven years.

Designer Kimball Olson's art features the Monarch butterfly’s wing patterns. “Using colored bricks instead of paint to portray individual butterfly wing scales enables that dramatic effect sustainably. There’s virtually no maintenance once the bricks are in place," said Olson.

You may also catch a glimpse of binary code, the zeros and ones of common computer language, on the west and east ends of the bridges for both northbound and southbound I-35 through a sort of “binary caterpillar” font. When you put this code together, the code spells out “Monarch Highway.”