Saturday, September 1, 2012

The Ol' Dixie Highway

We have a soft spot for maps here at Flint Expatriates, and this 1923 image of Dixie Highway is a nice one. (Click to enlarge) This is the route a lot of Southeners took to find jobs in the auto plants. And a lot of snowbirds went the opposite direction to escape the Winter Wonderland of Michigan. Basically, you used to be able to just get on Saginaw Street and drive until you hit Florida. (Originally posted on November 2, 2007.)

3 comments:

  1. The portion between Bay City and Detroit was mostly the roads now known as Saginaw St., Dixie Highway, and Woodward Ave. The portion between Bay City and Port Huron is less clear. Is it M-25 which follows Lake Huron and used to be US 25? But that doesn't go through Bad Axe as shown. I guess we have to go to Chris Bessert's Michigan Highways to see how these roads were numbered back in that time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I take the Dixie Hwy everyday to work from Boca Raton where I live to Delray Beach where I work. Crazy to think I used to travel on the same highway when I was raised in Flint.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is something to think about. Makes me fell more at home living in Florida and grew up in Flint

      Delete

Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.