K-238 is a short north–south state highway

State highway

State highway, state road or state route can refer to one of three related concepts, two of them related to a state or provincial government in a country that is divided into states or provinces :#A...

 in northeast Kansas

Kansas

Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

 connecting US 36

U.S. Route 36

U.S. Route 36 is an east–west United States highway that runs for from Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado to Uhrichsville, Ohio. The highway's western terminus is at Deer Ridge Junction, an intersection in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, where it meets U.S. Route 34. Its eastern...

 near Elwood

Elwood, Kansas

Elwood is a city in Doniphan County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 1,224. It is part of the St. Joseph, MO–KS Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Elwood is located at...

 to Rosecrans Memorial Airport

Rosecrans Memorial Airport

Rosecrans Memorial Airport is a joint civil-military public airport located three miles northwest of the city of St. Joseph in Buchanan County, Missouri, USA....

 in Missouri. Although the highway is located in Kansas it was needed to connect St. Joseph, Missouri with its airport. Prior to a flood in 1952 the city and its airport were on the same side of the Missouri river

Missouri River

The Missouri River flows through the central United States, and is a tributary of the Mississippi River. It is the longest river in North America and drains the third largest area, though only the thirteenth largest by discharge. The Missouri's watershed encompasses most of the American Great...

. Missouri supplemental route OO

Missouri Supplemental Route

A supplemental route is a state secondary road in the U.S. state of Missouri, designated with letters. Supplemental routes were various roads within the state which the Missouri Department of Transportation was given in 1952 to maintain in addition to the regular routes...

 in Buchanan County

Buchanan County, Missouri

Buchanan County is a county located in the U.S. state of Missouri. As of 2010, the population was 89,201. Its county seat is Saint Joseph. When originally formed in 1838, the county was named Roberts County, after settler Hiram Roberts; it was renamed in 1839 for James Buchanan, then a U.S....

 had previously linked the two http://www.modot.org/newsandinfo/publications/documents/1948_1949_front.pdf. After the flood the Army Corps of Engineers

United States Army Corps of Engineers

The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...

 proposed a plan to rechannel the river into a less flood prone course by removing the oxbow bend

Meander

A meander in general is a bend in a sinuous watercourse. A meander is formed when the moving water in a stream erodes the outer banks and widens its valley. A stream of any volume may assume a meandering course, alternately eroding sediments from the outside of a bend and depositing them on the...

around the airport. The city of St. Joseph agreed to the plan, which included construction of this highway, even though it would separate the city from the airport.http://www.omahariverfront.com/resources/river_floods/mizzrvr_floods.htm