Dixie Highway

Encyclopedia : D : DI : DIX : Dixie Highway

Dixie Highway in St. Johns County, Florida. This section was previously part of the older John Anderson Highway.

The Dixie Highway was a United States automobile highway first planned in 1914, to connect the US Midwest with the US South. It was part of the National Auto Trail system, and grew out of an earlier Miami to Montreal highway. The final result is better understood as a small network of interconnected paved roads, rather than a single highway. It was constructed and expanded from 1915 to 1927.

The Dixie Highway was inspired by the example of the slightly earlier Lincoln Highway. The prime booster of both projects was promoter and businessman Carl G. Fisher. It was overseen by the Dixie Highway Association, and funded by a group of individuals, businesses, local, and state governments. In the early years the US Federal government played little role, but from the early 1920s on it provided increasing funding, until 1927 when the Dixie Highway Association was disbanded and the highway was taken over as part of United States highway system, with some portions becoming state roads.

The route of the Dixie Highway was marked by a red stripe with the letters "DH" on it, usually with a white stripe above and below. This was commonly painted on telephone and telegraph poles along the route.

Routes

Monuments like this, and even arches over the roadway, were put up by counties as they built sections of highways including the Dixie Highway. This one is on U.S. Route 1, the east mainline of the Dixie Highway, at the Brevard/Volusia county line, and was probably originally located about a mile to the east on the old road.

Southbound on the west mainline entering Osceola County; this is now Orange Avenue.

The Dixie Highway had two main routes, both starting in Miami, Florida in the south.

The eastern division parallelled the Atlantic Ocean north to Savannah, Georgia, then went inland through Augusta, Georgia, Greenville, South Carolina and Knoxville, Tennessee, north through Lexington, Kentucky, Toledo, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and on to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, with an extension into Ontario, Canada. In general, this alignment is now the following roads:

• U.S. Route 1, Miami, FL to Jacksonville, FL
• U.S. Route 17, Jacksonville to Savannah, GA
• State Route 21, State Route 24 and U.S. Route 25, Savannah to Augusta, GA
• U.S. Route 25, Augusta to Newport, TN
• U.S. Route 25W, Newport to Corbin, KY
• U.S. Route 25 and former US 25, Corbin to Detroit, MI
• Former U.S. Route 10, Detroit to Flint, MI
• U.S. Route 23, Flint to Mackinaw City, MI
• Former U.S. Route 2, St. Ignace, MI to Sault Ste. Marie, MI

• U.S. Route 41, Miami, FL to Punta Gorda, FL
• U.S. Route 17, Punta Gorda to Orlando, FL
• U.S. Route 441, Orlando to High Springs, FL
• U.S. Route 27, High Springs to Tallahassee, FL
• U.S. Route 319, Tallahassee to Thomasville, GA
• U.S. Route 19, Thomasville to Americus, GA
• State Route 49, Americus to Macon, GA
• U.S. Route 41, Macon to Springfield, TN
• U.S. Route 431, Springfield to Russellville, KY
• U.S. Route 68, Russellville to Bowling Green, KY
• U.S. Route 31W, Bowling Green to Louisville, KY
• U.S. Route 150, Louisville to Paoli, IN
• State Road 37, Paoli to Indianapolis, IN
• U.S. Route 136, Indianapolis to Danville, IL
• Illinois Route 1, Danville to Chicago, IL

By 1925 the Dixie Highway system had 5,786 miles of paved roads. In places it incorporated older local and county paved roads.

In rural areas, the paved portion was often just a single lane; when two vehicles needed to pass each other, one or both needed to pull partway onto the road's shoulder.

Much of the southern portion of the highway was paved with brick from Alabama.

Florida

Northbound at the railroad crossing in Dania, Florida.

A brick section of the old Dixie Highway East Florida Connector (SR 3) on the west side of Lake Lily in Maitland, Florida. It was built in 1915 or 1916, paved over at some point, and restored in 1999.

The following State Road numbers were assigned to the Dixie Highway in 1923; for information about old alignments, see those pages:

Western division

• SR 27 from Miami to Fort Myers
• SR 5 from Ft. Myers to Punta Gorda
• SR 86 (assigned in 1927) from Punta Gorda to Arcadia
• SR 2 from Arcadia to High Springs
• SR 5A (assigned in 1925) from High Springs to Perry
• SR 19 from Perry to Tallahassee
• SR 10 from Tallahassee to Georgia

• SR 205 (assigned in 1931) from Flamingo to Florida City
• SR 4A (assigned in 1925) from Florida City to Miami
• SR 4 from Miami to Jacksonville
• SR 3 from Jacksonville to Georgia

• SR 18 from Arcadia to Lake Annie
• SR 8 from Lake Annie to Okeechobee
• SR 29 (assigned 1925) from Okeechobee to south of Okeechobee
• SR 194 (assigned 1931, formerly Conners Highway) from south of Okeechobee to Twenty Mile Bend
• SR 25 from Twenty Mile Bend to West Palm Beach

• SR 24 from Kissimmee to Melbourne

• SR 3 from Orlando to East Palatka
• SR 14 from East Palatka to Hastings

• SR 1 from east of Tallahassee to Jacksonville

• SR 4 from Jacksonville to Georgia

• SR 17 from Haines City to Dellwood
• SR 73 (assigned 1927 and 1931) from Dellwood to St. Petersburg
• SR 15 from St. Petersburg to Brooksville
• SR 5 from Brooksville to Juliette
• SR 16 from Juliette to Ocala

Illinois

The "western route" of Dixie Highway goes through downstate Illinois and enters the Chicagoland Area as it passes through Beecher , IL. From here it follows the Vincennes Trail north and splits into the Bishop Ford Freeway (formally Calumet Expressway) and Chicago Road (named because it is the main road through Chicago Heights) The Dixie Highway follows Chicago Road through Crete, Steger, South Chicago Heights, (at which point it meets up with the Sauk Trail.

As It continues north, It has a junction with Lincoln Highway (US 30). This is commonly known as the "Crossroads of America", because it is the interestection of America's first two transnational highways. This intersection also helped Cities such as Chicago Heights thrive in it's early days. Approximately two blocks after this interesection, Dixie Highway splits from Chicago Road and continues north through Flossmoor and Homewood. At the north end of Homewood's downtown, the road turns and goes under the Illinois Central Railroad tracks, which now Carries both the Metra Electric Line and Amtrak trains. The road continues north through East Hazel Crest and past the Markham Rail Yards and under the Tri-State Tollway.

Past the tollway, the road enters Hazel Crest, Markham and then Harvey, in which the street honorably named after actor Tom Dressen, a native of the town and graduate of Thornton High School. As the road continues, creating a border between the towns of Dixmoor and Posen, it's name changes to Western Avenue.

When the road enters Blue Island, it splits into two streets, (Western and Gregory), and realigns itself into one when it reaches Burr Oak Avenue. The road then enters the city of Chicago. Through Chicago, Western Avenue is a major boulevard, which continues north through the city to the town of Evanston, which is where the Dixie Highway ends.

The Dixie Highway after the The eastern route Dixie Highway mostly became U.S. Highway 25. In the late 20th century, the route was largely paralleled and in some sections replaced by Interstate 75, which starts in Miami, Florida and ends in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. A large portion of the former U.S. 25 in western Ohio ultimately ended up in 1963(after Interstate 75's local completion) as a county highway still affectionately referred to as "25-A" by local residents in Miami,Shelby,Auglaize and Allen counties. Dayton and Montgomery County residents call it "Dixie Drive" and its called "Cin-Day Rd." in Cincinnati's northern suburbs.A four lane portion runs through Bowling Green between Cygnet and Toledo as State Route Expressway 25 and in Michigan as "M 25" running through Detroit and ending in Bay City.

The eastern portion from Jacksonville, Florida south was largely replaced with U.S. Route 1.

The portion of the western route from Nashville, Tennessee north to Louisville, Kentucky is now U.S. Highway 31W. In most of the cities it traverses in Kentucky, it is still referred to as "Dixie Highway" or "Dixie Avenue." The western route generally follows the present-day route of U.S. Highway 31 from Louisville to Indianapolis. From Nashville to Indianapolis, the route parallels Interstate 65.

The name "Dixie Highway" persists in various locations along its route where the main flow of long-distance traffic has been rerouted to more modern highways and the old Dixie Highway remains as a local road. In some South Florida cities, Dixie Highway (or sometimes Old Dixie Highway) parallels "Federal Highway" (U.S. Route 1), sometimes just a block away. In some of these cities and towns, Dixie Highway is the north-south axis of the street numbering system, although its diagonal route (not quite straight north-south) makes it not quite the best choice for this use; furthermore, the extension of development westward means that the northwest and southwest quadrants of the grid defined in this manner are generally much larger than the northeast and southeast ones which are constrained by the Atlantic Ocean.

See also

• National Auto Trail
• United States highway

References