Dixie Highway - History

History

The Dixie Highway, an idea of Carl G. Fisher of the Lincoln Highway Association, was organized in early December 1914 in Chattanooga. On April 3, 1915, governors of the interested states met at Chattanooga, and each selected two commissioners to lay out the route from Chicago to Miami. On May 22, 1915, the commission decided on a split route in order to serve more communities. The route left Chicago to the south via Danville, Illinois and turned east to Indianapolis, where it split. The west branch headed south through Tennessee via Louisville and Nashville to Chattanooga, Tennessee, while the east route went east from Indianapolis to Dayton, Ohio before turning south via Cincinnati; Lexington, Kentucky; and Knoxville, Tennessee; to Chattanooga. Two alternate routes were included between Chattanooga and Atlanta, and again between Atlanta and Macon, Georgia. Finally, between Macon and Jacksonville, Florida, the west route went south to Tallahassee, Florida before turning east, while the east route had yet to be defined in detail. From Jacksonville, the route followed the east coast south to Miami along the John Anderson Highway. The commission voted to invite Michigan and to extend a branch of the east route from Dayton north to Detroit via Toledo, as well as to study a loop around Lake Michigan and a western route between Tallahassee and Miami.

Within a week, Michigan agreed to construct a loop around the Lower Peninsula, passing via South Bend, Mackinaw City, Detroit, and Toledo. Detroit became the northern end of the eastern division, with the old route to Indianapolis becoming a connecting link. In early April 1916, the commission approved the route between Macon and Jacksonville via Savannah, Georgia, and designated the more direct route via Waycross, Georgia as the central division. At the urging of locals, the eastern division was realigned to a more direct path northwest from Milledgeville, Georgia to Atlanta over the "Old Capitol Route", bypassing Macon, and the old eastern division via McDonough, Jackson, and Macon was removed from the system in early July 1916. By early 1917, the western division had been modified in Florida to go southeast from Tallahassee via Kissimmee and Bartow to the eastern division at Jupiter; the old Tallahassee–Jacksonville route became another connection. The Carolina division, connecting to the eastern division at Knoxville, Tennessee and Waynesboro, Georgia, was approved in mid-May 1918. By mid-1919, a short piece on Michigan's Upper Peninsula to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan became part of the eastern division of the highway, which was extended north from Detroit to Mackinaw City and across the Straits of Mackinac