On the Dixie, on the Dixie Bee Line,

Going to rise and shine, I'm going to stay up to time,

Rise and shine, I'm gwine to keep up to time,

When I ride in that Henry of mine. : On the Dixie Beeline, by Uncle Dave Macon, 1926

 

This is a different Dixie Bee Line than Uncle Dave’s, the eastern route:

 

 

”The Strategic Network of Highways is composed of main roads connecting termini selected by the General Staff of the United States Amy is considered to be of chief importance in the mobilization of armies and supplies in times of war.”

 

Looks a bit like one of those early “Reichsautobahn”, with the narrow lanes, landscaping, and what looks like concrete construction

 

US 25, the eastern alignment of the Dixie Highway, was part of this strategic network, and was also the route of an Interregional Highway recommended in the 1941 Interregional Highway study.    The stretch we see here, in the area in the red box below, was the first part built outside of Dayton, the ancestor of I-75.

 

 

Why this stretch first?  This mid-1941 traffic volume map provides a hint.  It shows average daily traffic volume in the last peacetime year, before WWII-era gas rationing.  One can already see that Southwest Ohio was seeing high volumes of traffic.  The shaded areas show the high volumes heading out of Dayton to the north and south, roughly along the alignment of US 25.

 

 

An inset providing detail for Dayton shows the northern segment of US 25 out of Dayton, between Dayton and US 40 and Vandalia (the location of the airport), had the highest daily volume coming into the city

 

 

 

So the solution was to construct a 4 lane divided highway with limited access between US 40 and a point just north of Dayton, paralleling the old route of the Dixie Hwy (labled New Troy Pike) as shown by this 1945 county engineers map (new alignment in red)

 

 

Why not improve the “old-road”, the old alignment?.  This 1930 map gives a hint.  The lower reaches, closer to the city, was already somewhat developed as a series of subdivisions.  Apparently it was though best to bypass this with a new highway just to the east of the plats. 

 

 

But then there was the question on how to end the road at the southern reaches.  The highway had to pass through existing development, like the Jensvold Plat shown above.  And the only place with a break in development along the old-road Dixie Highway was Eagles Park, apparently a picnic grove owned by a local F.O.E. aerie.  The above map shows it smaller than it really was. 

 

So highway was curved to the west to meet the New Troy Pike, intersecting with it and Wagner Ford Road.  The intersection was developed as a traffic circle, one of the very few in the Midwest on a major highway. 

 

One can see the traffic circle and the highway in these 1950s-era aerials and topos.  The treatment of the highway as quasi-limited access is also evident by the frontage roads as it passed between the pre-war plats, and the lack of interchanges at the intersections with selected east-west streets.

 

 

 

The new highway was named the “Super-Highway”. “Super” for short,  by the locals living in the surrounding plats.  A modern marvel since wasn’t anything in Dayton like it.

 

A close-up of the termination, showing how the highway passed through a plat and used the open land of Eagles Park

 

 

…and an aerial from around 1946 or 1947.  In the foreground, the old-road was widened from the traffic circle deeper into the city by the use of abandoned interurban railroad right-of-way for the southbound lanes (the line had private ROW and a frontage road for access, sort of like the original treatment of Far Hills in Oakwood)

 

 

And a close up of the termination of the “Super-Highway”.  The traffic circle was to be a well-known local landmark in the postwar era and was only recently (past 20, 25 years) removed.

 

 

I think the large shelter or bandstand building in Eagles Park is still standing, as a flea market.

 

The Northern Terminus of the Super Highway

 

The Super ended at US 40 in Vandalia.  Vandalia needs special treatment as it was probably a major generator of traffic for US 25 due to wartime development.  This sketch map shows some of the major features:

 

1. Aero Products Division of GM.  Built in 1940 and expanded in 1941.  The small cluster of buildings to west at the airport was the original hangars and support things for the muncipal airport; Aero Products didn’t have airfield access.

 

2. US Army Airfield.  With a railroad spur coming in from the north.  This was an expansion of the old Dayton Muncipal Airport (which itself was improved in the 1930s).  Parallel runways were added and a hangar/cantonment complex was built.  A training squadron operated here during the war.

 

3. As part of the complex Northwest Airlines operated a Modification Center for the Army Air Force

 

4. Housing:  Vandalia Homes as a war worker housing project and a new single-home plat, Airline Park, went under development.

 

Vandalia village was already somewhat expanded due to 1910s and 1920s development generated by the interurban (three stops in Vandalia) and early auto-suburbia.  During the 1920s trapshooters association had acquired property west of town for their competitions.

 

 

The Dixie Highway divided highway ended here, but apparently the intersection was thought of as temporary, as a left turn ramp was built from eastbound US 40 to southbound Dixie Highway as the start of an interchange.  So no cluster of gas stations or motels right on the intersection

 

A better view of Vandalia during the late 1940s or very early 1950s, showing some very early postwar development, but the wartime features are still here.  The curved southbound entrance ramp on to Dixie is also barely visible.

 

 

A wartime aerial from the military, showing Aero Products, the army airfield, and the new heavy-duty dual runway.  The other runways were built in the mid 1930s.

 

(this is a photo of a photo as it was hanging on the wall of the Vandalia Historical Society)

 

Aero Products was started by a Dayton inventor who designed a better propellor.  He sold to GM, who built the plant here in 1940 and expanded it in 1941.   

 

 

The photo is from either 1940 or 1941, and the aircraft overhead is a Transcontinental & Western (TWA) passenger plane.  TWA had some of the first scheduled air service into Dayton after the runway improvements of the 1930s.

 

Aero Products published an employee newsletter,  really a small magazine, called Aeropinion.  The 1940s issues are all available in the Dayton library, and most of them have, on the cover, a man and his machine (and a short bio piece on both).  In this case we have a woman.  Instead of Rosie the Riveter Dayton had “Millie the Machinist”:

 

 

 

Millie and probably quite a few of the Aero Products people probably had to drive (or carpool or take a bus) into Dayton as there just wasn’t enough housing in Vandalia.  One can imagine traffic became a real issue after wartime rationing ended.

 

 

By the late 1940s planning must have really kicked off for the interregional highways as this 1948 county throroughfare plan shows Dixie Highway connected on the north & south to extensions

 

 

Interestingly, this plan shows a divided highway US 40 as the east-west interregional (on the map but off this image are grade-separated interchanges at various locations).  This would have been a bit like the old US 66 in Illinois or parts of US 31 in Indiana. 

 

Vandalia in 1952, moving into the suburban era.  One can see the southbound ramp, the outlines of the proposed interchange, and a proposed truck terminal (#8) just to the west of the expanded Airline Park plat,  along the proposed northern extension of the four-lane.

 

 

Aero Products has been joined by another factory (#16), Standard-Thomson Corporation.  A number of the expansions shown here hadn’t been built yet, with streets platted but not opened.

 

By 1956 the era of postwar suburbia was in full-swing.  The Interstate Highway Act was passed that year, and construction got underway very quickly on what was to become I-75 north of US 40.  This mosaic of two Soil & Water Conservation Service aerials shows the new highway under construction north of Vandalia. 

 

 

One wonders if the engineering was already done by ODOT since the construction happened so fast.  Everything ready to go, just add money.

 

One can also see the expanding postwar plats around old Vandalia.  In a way this mass produced housing was foreshadowed by wartime developments, the need to get a lot of people quickly under roof.

 

In this enlargement, some features.  A big one was the disappearance of Vandalia Homes as the new plats replaced the need for multi-family wartime housing.  The Vandalia Homes site became a mishmash of things, including Vandalia city hall.

 

 

Aero Products was sold by GM around this time (getting out of the prop business at the dawn of the jet age), and the plant was converted into an Inland Auto Parts operation, later Delphi, doubling in size and expanding toward I-75 until finally closing.  The 1940-41 front part shown here was torn down very recently.

 

One can also see the interchange at what is now Northwoods Boulevard.  This was to serve the airport as well as Aero Products, since the terminal was on the east side of the field at that time.  In 1962 a new terminal (the core of the modern terminal complex) would open on the west side, with access from US 40.

 

The Army Airfield remained in military use after the war.  An Air National Guard fighter squadron was stationed here into the 1950s.  Eventually the cantonment area and hangars were demolished.

 

For more airport history & pix click here

 

After the advent of the interstate era the “Super Highway” was not that super anymore, since it still had at-grade intersections.  This was to be the case until the very early 1970s, when the stretch between I-75 and the traffic circle exit was finally turned into a true limited access highway with grade separated interchanges.

 

In the 1950s the mid-section of pre-interstate Dixie Highway (now re-designated I-75) was still a lot like it was in the 1940s, with not much development along the highway itself….

 

 

…though one sees’ some wartime or early postwar development to the south, at Marianne Country Estates.  This was a deep-lot farmette development which appears more oriented to the “Super” than it does to surrounding roads, as are the scattered frontage road plats. The fate of Marianne Country Estates would be worth its own post.

 

The northmost pre-war plats are visible, too (Harrison Terrace and Dixie Heights).

 

A close up of the area, showing an early motel.  The aerial dates from the 1960s, demonstrating that this area was not seeing much freeway oriented development at all.  Development would accelerate starting in the 1970s.

 

 

 

The area in the red box, enlarged.  The two trees in the median in the 1943-44 pic are still there...

 

 

...today: 

 

 

 

 

 

”I walked the deserted prospect of the modern mind - where nothing lived or happened that had not been foreseen. What had been foreseen was the coming of the Stranger with Money. All that had been before had been destroyed: A new earth had appeared in place of the old, made entirely according to plan. Some small human understanding seemed to have arrayed itself there without limit, and to have cast its grid upon the sky, the stars, the rising and the setting sun. I could not see past it but to its ruin.”

---Wendell Berry

 

 

 

Very nice, Jeffery. I really didn't realize this section of the interstate was constructed like this, and definitely didn't realize the old traffic circle was the southern terminus!

 

I also liked the shots of this road in the '40's vs. I-75 at Benchwood-Wyse now (especially since it's the Dayton area's highest volume section of highway). What a difference!

Looks like there are some remains of the southern terminus, but not much: google map. Remants still exist of the original US 25/40 interchange, namely the ramp: google map. Interesting dive into highway history and development...

^

Yeah, the traffic circle, whats left of it, has been incoprated into an exit off I-75.  It doesnt operate as a traffic circle, though.

 

This wouldn't have been the southern terminus for long, because already in 1944 the ODOT regional office was planning a limited access expressway through Dayton, the northern end connecting at the traffic circle.

 

According to "Interstate: Express Highway Politics 1941-1945";

 

..."By December, 1943, engineers had blueprinted several expressway networks including one from Painesville to downtown Cleveland, another from Cincinnati to Lima"...

 

...so I'll bet this highway, the Dayton expessway plan of 1944, and the first stretch of the Mill Creek Expressway through Lockland were related to this planning, as was that northern extension shown in the later maps.  It would be interesting to see what that 1943 plan looked like.

 

 

Another great thread, Jeffrey. Have you seen Jonathan Gifford's Flexible Urban Transportation? He argues that new terrain limited access roads were preferred in urban areas because landowners on existing roads would not have to be compensated for the loss of access. That assumes that the new highway would fit inside the old alignment.

 

You mentioned that the Dixie Highway through Dayton was the eastern alignment. Where was the western? I grew up in western Indiana, and US 41 through Terre Haute is called the "Dixie Bee Highway". Could that have been it?

Unlike the Lincoln Highway or the National Road, the Dixie Highway developed into a network of roads linking Chicago (and later Detroit) to the South.  Sorry for the image size...

 

Thanks Buckeye1 for the map. The alignments through Indiana seem quite screwy to me, particularly the routing through Bloomington and Paoli.

Im really amazed at the things you find and put together. It has to be very time consuming.  Nice work.

 

The song linked at the top of the thread header was about the western legs of the Dixie Highway, between Louisville and Lexington.  I think the route shifted on occasion, and then was replaced by US highways.  In Dayton it was also called Dixie Drive, and there were/are two: North Dixie and South Dixie.

 

Whatever Happened to the Dixie Highway

 

 

@@@

 

Bonus pix: Vandalia village core at the intersection of US 40 and US 25, in the 1920s? (note early gas station):

 

 

 

Same intersection today, roughly the same orientation (north is up)

 

 

The world we have lost

 

 

@@@@@

 

The closing quote was paraphrase of a longer poem,  and here is that poem which clarifies the poets’ intention in reading a landscape.  Wendell Berry is a Kentuckian, but spent time at Stanford on a writing fellowship, hence the reference to the Santa Clara Valley.

 

From SABBATHS by Wendell Berry

 

III. (Santa Clara Valley)

 

I walked the deserted prospect of the modern mind

where nothing lived or happened that had not been foreseen.

What had been foreseen was the coming of the Stranger with Money.

All that had been before had been destroyed: the salt marsh

of unremembered time, the remembered homestead, orchard and pasture.

A new earth had appeared in place of the old, made entirely

according to plan. New palm trees stood all in a row, new pines

all in a row, confined in cement to keep them from straying.

 

New buildings, built to seal and preserve the inside

against the outside, stood in the blatant outline of their purpose

in the renounced light and air. Inside them

were sealed cool people, the foreseen ones, who did not look

or go in any way that they did not intend,

waited upon by other people, trained in servility, who begged

of the ones who had been foreseen: ‘Is everything

all right, sir? Have you enjoyed your dinner, sir?

Have a nice evening, sir.’ Here was no remembering

of hands coming newly to the immortal work

of hands, joining stone to stone, door to doorpost, man to woman.

 

Outside, what had been foreseen was roaring in the air.

Roads and buildings roared in their places

on the scraped and chartered earth; the sky roared

with the passage of those who had been foreseen

toward destinations they foresaw, unhindered by any place between.

The highest good of that place was the control of temperature

and light. The next highest was to touch or know or say

no fundamental or necessary thing. The next highest

was to see no thing that had not been foreseen,

to spare no comely thing that had grown comely on its own.

Some small human understanding seemed to have arrayed itself

there without limit, and to have cast its grid upon the sky,

the stars, the rising and the setting sun.

I could not see past it but to its ruin.

 

I walked alone in that desert of unremitting purpose,

feeling the despair of one who could no longer remember

another valley where bodies and events took place and form

not always foreseen by human, and the humans themselves followed

ways not altogether in the light, where all the land had not yet

been consumed by intention, or the people by their understanding,

where still there was forgiveness in time, so that whatever

had been destroyed might yet return. Around me

as I walked were dogs barking in resentment

against the coming of the unforeseen.

 

And yet even there I was not beyond reminding,

for I came upon a ditch where the old sea march,

native to that place, had been confined below the sight

of the only-foreseeing eye. What had been the overworld

had become the underworld: the land risen from the sea

by no human intention, the drawing in and out of the water,

the pulse of the great sea itself confined in a narrow ditch.

 

Where the Sabbath of that place kept itself in waiting,

the herons of the night stood in their morning watch,

and the herons of the day in silence stood

by the living water in its strait. The coots and gallinules

skulked in the reeds, the mother mallards and their little ones

afloat on the seaward-sliding water to no purpose I had foreseen.

The stilts were feeding in the shallows, and the killdeer

treading with light feet the mud that was all ashine

with the coming day. Volleys of swallows leapt

in joyous flight out of the dark into the brightening air

in eternal gratitude for life before time not foreseen,

and the song of the song sparrow rang in its bush.

 

 

 

Thanks!

Looks like most of the houses/businesses lost at 25/40 were because of the widening of both routes? Were these places victims of the road that brung them?

^

^

could be.  I think of south suburban Centerville,that didnt lose all its old stuff.  But here its different, and the replaement buildings so generic.  The historic society says that there are no old buildings left on the original plat of Vandalia.

 

Im really amazed at the things you find and put together. It has to be very time consuming...

 

It is.  Notice that I don't post stuff like this very often.

 

 

loving that old old map.

 

...here's your sign: link

 

 

Jeffery, another fantastic historical thread. Great work once again.

 

I love the inclusion of the old maps showing Tadmore (!), Phoneton and Taylorsville as distinct small towns.

 

I left D8ton in 1980 and moved back to the area in '90. The (now non-existent) Wagner Ford traffic circle existed in 1980 when I left.

 

In the 60s and early 70s you'd see local nightly news reports of multiple traffic fatalities at intersections like Needmore and I-75, pre-grade-separation. I-75 at the time was basically a high speed boulevard.