Snake Alley Source: formulanone / Flickr | CC BY-SA Snake Alley Snake Alley as it’s known, is an attraction in its own right, with tighter turns than Lombard Street in San Francisco, and the site of events like an art fair in June. In 1894, Burlington became the home of the “most crooked street in the US”, built to overcome the sharp gradient between a residential neighborhood and the commercial district below.
Burlington has a lot of fine brick architecture from this period, in a downtown area that is now enjoying a 21st-century revival. Laid out on the bluffs by the mighty Mississippi River, Burlington is at the spot where in 1805 explorer Zebulon Pike first raised the American flag on what would become Iowan soil.Ī century later the city was flourishing as a nexus point for river and rail transport networks.