A Road More Traveled/The Dixie Highway in Acworth

A Road More Traveled/The Dixie Highway in Acworth. . A Road More Traveled – To meet the demands of an automobile nation on the move, the Dixie Highway connected a web of existing roads and created the first north-south highway in the United States. The highway linked seven states between Michigan and Florida. First planned in 1915, the Dixie Highway underwent road improvements, such as paving and roadside beautification, well into the 1930s. Named to attract Northerners to the sunny South, the Dixie Highway also enabled migrants to travel north in search of greater economic opportunity. , The Dixie Highway in Acworth – In Georgia, the Dixie Highway weaved through the state along multiple routes. Local communities like Acworth advocated for the highway by contributing funds and touting scenic stops, historic sites, and smooth roads. Here in Acworth, the Dixie Highway ran along Main Street. As more travelers took to the road, services stations, tourist camps, motels, and souvenir shops dotted the landscape and defined roadside culture. The heyday of the Dixie Highway ended in the 1950s, when the new four-lane highways and interstates rerouted traffic away from main streets. Now considered a historic resource, remnants of the Dixie Highway attract a new type of traveler looking for scenic byways off the beaten path. , [Photo captions] , Left side, top to bottom , . Mrs. J.A. Greene's roadside chenille shop on the Dixie Highway in Adairsville, Georgia, ca. 1930s. Courtesy Edwin L. Jackson , . Main Street in Acworth, Georgia, ca. 1920s. Courtesy Save Acworth History Foundation , . Stuckey's advertisement for its signature product, pecans. Courtesy Kennesaw State University Archives and Special Collections , . Dixie Tourist Camp, Waycross, Georgia, ca. 1930s. Courtesy Edwin L. Jackson, Center: Dixie Highway map printed in a commemorative issue of The Atlanta Constitution, 1919. Courtesy University of Michigan, Right side, top to bottom , . Motorcade celebrating the completion of the Dixie Highway, Calhoun, Georgia, 1928. Courtesy Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia Collection , . Illinois Monument, Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield, Park, 2011. Courtesy Tim Yonkers , . Postcard advertising the segregated Dudley's Motel in Dublin, Georgia, to Black travelers planning a trip on the Dixie Highway. Courtesy Edwin L. Jackson , . Winter bathing in Miami, Florida, February 1921. Courtesy Library of Congress