The Second Named Trail: Where the Dixie Highway Actually Ran

The Dixie Highway in Indiana, 1915–1929, tested against Olive Township

What the Dixie was: The Dixie Highway was a named auto trail first planned in 1914 to connect the Midwest with the South, promoted by Carl G. Fisher, and constructed and expanded from 1915 to 1929. It was never one road: the published route record describes it as a network of connected paved roads with eastern and western divisions and connecting links, and Indiana's own historic-context study for the Department of Transportation records that by 1923 Indiana had more than forty named roadways, the Dixie among them, and that by 1919 the Dixie had become more of a network than a highway, at some 5,700 miles with connectors and a third division added.

Its Indiana course, from the state's own study: The Indiana historic-context study states the western division's Indiana course in one sentence: it “traversed Indiana from South Bend at the north, through Plymouth, Logansport, and Michigantown to Indianapolis, and then on to Martinsville, Bloomington, Bedford, and Paoli, to Louisville.” North of South Bend, the trail entered Indiana just north of that city on what is now US 31, its mainline having come south more or less along the Lake Michigan side from Sault Ste. Marie. South of South Bend, almost the whole segment from South Bend to Indianapolis followed the Michigan Road. The state's first state-road designation folded the same ground into the system: original State Road 1 started at the Michigan state line along the Dixie Highway, was joined at South Bend by the Michigan Road, and ran with that arrangement to Rochester before the state road and the trail parted company. In December 1916 Indiana's governor joined others at Martinsville to inaugurate the new Miami-to-Indianapolis Dixie Highway.

The junction that explains the crossing sign: A road-by-road survey of the Michigan Road, walked and photographed through St. Joseph County, fixes the exact point where the two named trails met. At Michigan Street and La Salle Avenue in South Bend, the Michigan Road “hangs a hard left” — where it had always been a north–south road it becomes an east–west road — and, in the survey's words, “it also ceases to be the Dixie Highway and becomes the Lincoln Highway.” Westbound from that corner, La Salle Avenue curves into Lincolnway West, crosses the Terre Coupee prairie, becomes US 20 outside South Bend, and comes to New Carlisle. East and south from that same corner, the Dixie continued on the Michigan Road toward Indianapolis. The two trails crossed — shared a junction and divided — at South Bend, east of Olive Township, not in it.

The tested negative, printed as the finding: No Dixie Highway course through New Carlisle or Olive Township is supported by the published record searched for this section — the Dixie Highway Association's 1923 outline map of the system, the Indiana Department of Transportation's historic-context study, the road surveys of the Dixie's Indiana branches, and the state-road history of the trails the first state roads replaced. Every one of those records puts the Dixie on the US 31 / Michigan Road corridor into and south out of South Bend, and puts the South Bend–New Carlisle–Michigan City segment on the Lincoln Highway and then US 20. A Dixie mainline through the town is therefore not claimed here, and no course through the township has been invented to fill the sign's silence. The honest telling of the banked crossing marker at Washington and Michigan streets in New Carlisle is a feeder and boundary telling: the Dixie reached this ground's corridor system at the South Bend junction, where a traveler on the Dixie could turn west onto the Lincoln Highway and reach New Carlisle on that trail — the Dixie ends, for this township, at the county's eastern side, and the marker in town marks the crossing of the two trails' world, not a Dixie pavement through it.

Sources:

1. Indiana Department of Transportation historic-context study, Transportation in Indiana (in.gov/indot): the Dixie Highway's western division traversing Indiana from South Bend through Plymouth, Logansport and Michigantown to Indianapolis and on through Martinsville, Bloomington, Bedford and Paoli to Louisville; the December 1916 Martinsville inauguration of the Miami-to-Indianapolis Dixie Highway; more than forty named Indiana roadways by 1923; and the Dixie as a network of about 5,700 miles by 1919.
2. “The Dixie Highway in western Indiana,” Down the Road road survey (blog.jimgrey.net, 2023): the Dixie's mainline entering Indiana just north of South Bend on what is now US 31; the three Indiana branches converging at Indianapolis; almost the whole South Bend-to-Indianapolis segment following the Michigan Road; and Indiana folding the Dixie into its state highway network in the 1920s.
3. “The Michigan Road and the Lincoln Highway in St. Joseph County,” Down the Road road survey (blog.jimgrey.net, 2022): at Michigan Street and La Salle Avenue in South Bend the Michigan Road turns, ceases to be the Dixie Highway and becomes the Lincoln Highway; the road west becoming US 20 outside South Bend, crossing the Terre Coupee prairie to New Carlisle.
4. “The First Five State Roads, and the Auto Trails They Replaced,” Indiana Transportation History: original State Road 1 beginning at the Michigan state line along the Dixie Highway, joined at South Bend by the Michigan Road, the arrangement used to Rochester.
5. Dixie Highway route summary (AARoads Wiki and the Dixie Highway Association's 1923 outline map as reproduced from AASHTO archives): the trail planned in 1914, constructed and expanded 1915–1929, organized in eastern and western divisions with northern and midwestern connectors joining the mainlines, the northern connector running Mackinaw City to Indianapolis via South Bend, Rochester and Logansport.
6. Banked fact for this section, as supplied in this section's register: the Lincoln Highway Association / Dixie crossing marker at Washington and Michigan streets in New Carlisle.