Dixie Highway

The Dixie Highway was a United States automobile highway, first planned in 1914 to connect the US Midwest with the Southern United States. 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 network of connected paved roads, rather than one 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 first road across the United States. 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 governments, and states. In the early years the U.S. 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 the U.S. Route system, with some portions becoming state roads.

Highway

A highway is any public road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks: It is not an equivalent term to freeway (motorway), or a translation for autobahn, autoroute, etc.

In North American and Australian English, major roads such as controlled-access highways or arterial roads are often state highways (Canada: provincial highways). Other roads may be designated "county highways" in the US and Ontario. These classifications refer to the level of government (state, provincial, county) that maintains the roadway.

In British English, "highway" is primarily a legal term. Everyday use normally implies roads, while the legal use covers any route or path with a public right of access, including footpaths etc.

The term has led to several related derived terms, including highway system, highway code, highway patrol and highwayman.

The term highway exists in distinction to "waterway".

Overview

Major highways are often named and numbered by the governments that typically develop and maintain them. Australia's Highway 1 is the longest national highway in the world at over 14,500 km or 9,000 mi and runs almost the entire way around the continent. China has the world's largest network of highways followed closely by the United States of America. Some highways, like the Pan-American Highway or the European routes, span multiple countries. Some major highway routes include ferry services, such as U.S. Route 10, which crosses Lake Michigan.

Dixie

Dixie is a historical nickname for the Southern United States.

"Dixie" as a region

As a definite geographic location within the United States, "Dixie" is usually defined as the eleven Southern states that seceded in late 1860 and early 1861 to form the new confederation named the Confederate States of America. They are (in order of secession): South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

However, the location and boundaries of "Dixie" have become, over time, more limited, vernacular and mercurial. Today, it is most often associated with those parts of the Southern United States where traditions and legacies of the Confederate era and the antebellum South live most strongly.

Many businesses in the South contain "Dixie" in their name as an identifier, such as supermarket chain "Winn-Dixie".

Origin of the name

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the origins of this nickname remain obscure. According to A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles (1951), by Mitford M. Mathews, three theories most commonly attempt to explain the term:

South Florida

South Florida is a region of the U.S. state of Florida, it comprises the southernmost part of the state. It is one of Florida's three most common "directional" regions, the others being Central Florida and North Florida. It includes the populous Miami metropolitan area, the Florida Keys, and other localities. South Florida is the only part of the continental United States with a tropical climate.

Area

As with all vernacular regions, South Florida has no official boundaries or status, and is defined differently by different sources. A 2007 study of Florida's regions by Ary Lamme and Raymond K. Oldakowski found that Floridians surveyed identified "South Florida" as comprising the southernmost sections of peninsular Florida. This area includes the Miami metropolitan area (generally defined as Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties), the Florida Keys, and the interior region known as the Glades. Additionally, South West Florida, representing the state's southern Gulf Coast, has emerged as a directional vernacular region. Some respondents from as far northwest as the southern Tampa Bay area identified their region as being in South Florida rather than South West or Central Florida.

Treasure Coast

The Treasure Coast is a region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is located on the state's Atlantic coast, comprising Indian River, St. Lucie, and Martin, and in some definitions, Palm Beach counties. The region, whose name refers to the Spanish Treasure Fleet lost in a 1715 hurricane, evidently emerged from residents' desire to separate themselves from Miami and the Gold Coast region.

The area includes two metropolitan statistical areas designated by the Office of Management and Budget and used for statistical purposes by the Census Bureau and other agencies: the Port St. Lucie, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area (comprising St. Lucie and Martin Counties) and the Sebastian – Vero Beach, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area (comprising Indian River County). Palm Beach county is part of the Miami–Fort Lauderdale–Pompano Beach, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area.

History

The area has long been inhabited, but like other of Florida's vernacular regions, a popular identity for the area did not emerge until the area saw its initial population boom in the 20th century. It is one of several "coast" regions in Florida, like the Gold Coast and the First Coast. The term was coined by John J. Schumann Jr. and Harry J. Schultz of the Vero Beach Press Journal newspaper shortly after salvagers began recovering Spanish treasure off the coast in 1961. The discovery of treasure from the 1715 Treasure Fleet, lost in a hurricane near the Sebastian Inlet, was of major local importance and brought international attention to the area.Press Journal publisher Shumann and editor Schultz noted that there was no name for their area, which was between the well known Gold Coast (Palm Beach to Miami to the south) and the Space Coast (Brevard County to the north). They started referring to their region as the "Treasure Coast" in the newspaper, and this use spread to the community.