November 21, 1901 - Sidewalks are built in the Denniston addition and 600 loads of gravel on Denniston and Pentz streets, costing $350 (previously dirt).
May 8, 1902 - Pay for future street work is .30 cents per hour for man and team - .15 cents for man.
October 16, 1902 - Prominent farmer says you can tell when they get into Collins. The roads outside town are bad; inside town they are B - A - D.
June 25, 1908 - Local neighborhood folks are getting more accustomed to the automobiles. October 27, 1898: A wagon propelled by gasoline engine passed through Collins Monday.
June 17, 1915 - A plan for parking autos on business streets is becoming popular; they are parked in the center of the street with front and back facing business stores.
March 22, 1917 - Collins and Melbourne jointly purchased road oiler.
November 10, 1927 - Town council made tentative plans for graveling nine additional blocks of streets. When done, nearly all streets will be graveled. (Insert 2003: Streets previously dirt.)
January 1935 - It is stated the contract for constructing an "overhead bridge crossing" on Highway #65 over the Milwaukee Railroad tracks will be awarded this month.
August 24, 1939 - Concrete paving for Highway #65 from Colo to south Story County line (3 miles south of Collins) is completed.
April 16, 1959 - Work on Collins Main street starting with construction of curb and gutter followed by asphalt surface on street. (Insert 2003: First hard surface street)
(Insert 2003: 3 miles south of Collins to the Jasper-Story county line: The first 2 miles of county road going west was dirt road until 1938, when the road was graveled, the grading on Highway #65 was under way for concrete paving in 1939. A county road one mile south was dirt until mid-1940's. Also old Highway #30 (Lincoln Highway) had many "mud holes" in 1915 era. Quite apparent county road improvement was incremental over many years.)
June 11, 1896 - The city council granted Iowa (Union) Telephone company the right to erect and maintain poles and wires on streets of the city.
October 21, 1897 - Telephone connections were made with Collins and the world beyond this afternoon. The office of the Iowa Telephone Company is in Fred Leonard's hardware store, from which place you can talk to the people of the surrounding towns and adjoining counties.
April 14, 1898 - The telephone rates were reduced April 1. A full three minutes talk to Des Moines now costs but 25 cents, to Rhodes, 20 cents, to Nevada 20 cents.
October 24, 1901 - A phone company has been formed here for the purpose of putting in a telephone exchange. The company is composed of F. A. Leonard, W. H. Thompson, C. L. Fish, Fred Graef and J. Lingenfelt, all enterprising business men of Collins, and their purpose is to put in an exchange and run lines into the country, giving the farmers the same convenience that the town citizen has. They ask a twenty-year franchise from the city and the council has ordered a special election to determine the question.