Historic Old Dixie Highway - Florida
The Dixie Highway was planned out in December 1914 to connect the Midwest with the South, from Chicago to Miami.
By the mid-1920s, the project was largely completed with a network of roads interconnected across 10 states with more than 5,000 miles of paved, bricked road. But, by 1927, Dixie Highway became part of the US Route System, and was therefore, mostly abandoned. But, a portion of it still remains in remote Florida, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 20, 2005.
“It’s one of the oldest roads in America,” according to the historian.
Upon on my arrival, I started from south toward north, before I entered, there is a warning: “Travel at your own risk.” And another prohibiting the removal of the bricks in the road. Doing so, it says, warrants prosecution “to the fullest extent of the law.”
The historic stretch of Old Dixie Highway is 10 miles long, and would recommend to drive slowly as there are some thick soft-sand on the road that could cause slide off from the road if driving too fast.
Interesting fact: The brick was manufactured by the Graves Shale Brick Company in Birmingham, Alabama, belonging to a slave-owning man who fought for the Confederacy. It took 237,600 such bricks to build just 1 mile of road, 9 feet wide. Others are with the words "SOUTHERN CLAY MFG CO” for the Southern Clay Manufacturing Company in Tennessee.
Historic Old Dixie Highway - Florida
The Dixie Highway was planned out in December 1914 to connect the Midwest with the South, from Chicago to Miami.
By the mid-1920s, the project was largely completed with a network of roads interconnected across 10 states with more than 5,000 miles of paved, bricked road. But, by 1927, Dixie Highway became part of the US Route System, and was therefore, mostly abandoned. But, a portion of it still remains in remote Florida, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 20, 2005.
“It’s one of the oldest roads in America,” according to the historian.
Upon on my arrival, I started from south toward north, before I entered, there is a warning: “Travel at your own risk.” And another prohibiting the removal of the bricks in the road. Doing so, it says, warrants prosecution “to the fullest extent of the law.”
The historic stretch of Old Dixie Highway is 10 miles long, and would recommend to drive slowly as there are some thick soft-sand on the road that could cause slide off from the road if driving too fast.
Interesting fact: The brick was manufactured by the Graves Shale Brick Company in Birmingham, Alabama, belonging to a slave-owning man who fought for the Confederacy. It took 237,600 such bricks to build just 1 mile of road, 9 feet wide. Others are with the words "SOUTHERN CLAY MFG CO” for the Southern Clay Manufacturing Company in Tennessee.