Carl Fisher links Florida to the nation with Dixie Highway

Dixie Highway opening in Dania 1915

Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan

Miami Beach developer and automobile industry pioneer, Carl G. Fisher, planned, financed and opened America’s first transcontinental motorway, Lincoln Highway, in 1915. At the same time, he visualized the benefits of a road that would link Florida to the rest of the nation.

That vision became Dixie Highway*.

“The Dixie highway should bring thousands of automobiles into the state,” wrote Fisher in 1915.

Indiana native Fisher, builder of the Indianapolis Speedway (1909), planned for the road to start at Lincoln Highway in Chicago with its terminus in Miami. The project was financed by individuals, businesses, and local and state governments organized as the Dixie Highway Association in 1914. Starting in Chicago, the road split into two routes at Indianapolis as it wended south.

“I consider the southern loop of the Dixie highway the most difficult to complete on account of the territory through which it passes and the lack of ready funds,” said Fisher.

Dixie Highway Miami region 1922
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

Nevertheless, the first car passed through Dania on Dixie Highway October 24, 1915 after a 13-day trip from Chicago. The car was part of a caravan headed by Carl Fisher.  A twisted mish mash of local roads, the highway was taken over by the federal government as part of the US Route system in 1927. Dixie Highway was the first paved road along Florida's east coast. 

And so they drove down Dixie Highway, people in “thousands of automobiles” with dreams of Florida sunshine and golden opportunities. Carl Fisher built a road and they came – in droves.

Dixie Highway along Indian River 1923
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

*Note: During September, 2021, parts of Dixie Highway in Miami were re-named Harriet Tubman Highway, in honor of the 19th-century abolitionist.

For Tamiami Trail, see: 

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/08/tampa-to-miami-on-tamiami-trail.html.

Sources:

Federal Highway Administration

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/back1102.cfm

Miami Daily Metropolis, June 11, 1915

Miami Herald, Oct. 26 1915

Weidling, Philip J., Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press (1966).

Tags: Florida history, Fort Lauderdale history, Dixie Highway history, Carl G. Fisher, Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental road, film research, early Florida investor 1900s,