Iowa Code

Iowa Code § 321.259 (2026)

Unauthorized signs, signals, or markings

✓ current as of July 2026
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1. No person shall place, maintain, or display upon or in view of any highway any sign, signal, marking, or device which purports to be or is an imitation of or resembles an official parking sign, curb or other marking, traffic-control device or railroad sign or signal, or which attempts to direct the movement of traffic, or which hides from view or interferes with the effectiveness of any official traffic-control device or any railroad sign or signal, if such sign, signal, marking, or device has not been authorized by the department and local authorities with reference to streets and highways under their jurisdiction and no person shall place or maintain nor shall any public authority permit upon any highway any traffic sign or signal bearing thereon any commercial advertising. This shall not be deemed to prohibit the erection upon private property adjacent to highways of signs giving useful directional information of a type that cannot be mistaken for official signs.

2. Every such prohibited sign, signal, or marking is hereby declared to be a public \n Tue Dec 09 22:16:59 2025 Iowa Code 2026, Chapter 321 (137, 2) §321.259, MOTOR VEHICLES AND LAW OF THE ROAD 182\n\nnuisance and the authority having jurisdiction over the highway is hereby empowered to remove the same or cause it to be removed without notice. [C39, §5019.08; C46, 50, 54, 58, 62, 66, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 81, §321.259] Nuisances in general, chapter 657 \n

Notes of Decisions
Cited in 3 cases, 1957–1975 · leading case: Wittrup v. Chicago & Nw. Ry. Co., 226 N.W.2d 822 (Iowa 1975).
Wittrup v. Chicago & Nw. Ry. Co., 226 N.W.2d 822 (Iowa 1975). · cites it 12× “Even the railroad signs and signals which the code does prescribe are not in chapter 321.”
Geisking v. Sheimo, 105 N.W.2d 599 (Iowa 1960). · cites it 2× “252, supra; and section 321.259 provides that no unauthorized signs shall be placed on any highway, and such signs are declared to be public nuisances.”
Jasper v. Chicago Great W. Ry. Co., 84 N.W.2d 21 (Iowa 1957). · cites it 2× “It provides in substance that no person shall maintain upon any highway any unauthorized sign which purports to be an official sign, traffic-control device or railroad sign or which attempts to direct traffic.”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.