The Highway 275 Conference has to have one of the strangest concepts of any conference in the country. It is named after a highway that goes through only 1 town in Missouri (Rockport).
In 1930, Highway 275 was the main highway between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Council Bluffs, Iowa.
In the 1940s, the Highway 275 Conference was established mostly for schools close to its corridor (Oregon, Forest City, Mound City, and Craig). 1950 standings show schools also included communities further away, such as Westboro, Fairfax, and Horace Mann in Maryville, almost 50 miles from the road.
In 1963, with the construction of I-29, 275 was truncated, beginning in Rockport and running through farmland to Iowa, where the closest communities were Hamburg and Sidney. It went on to Council Bluffs and then crossed the Missouri River on the South Omaha Veterans Memorial Bridge into Omaha. The Highway is flagged north-south in Missouri and Iowa and east-west in Nebraska.
Today, the conference has grown, and most school districts are as far as 30 miles from the original 275.
Districts Not on Original 275 Route
East Atchison [Tarkio/Fairfax]
Nodaway Valley (Nodaway-Holt/West Nodaway)
Platte Valley Co-op [South Nodaway/Jefferson]
Districts Still Close to the Original 275
