Paved Dixie Highway to Go Through Asheville, Benefit Hendersonville, 1918

“Many Benefits From Dixie Highway,” from The Hendersonville Visitor as reprinted in the French Broad Hustler, Hendersonville, N.C., Aug. 8, 1918


The people of Hendersonville should be interested in the fact that Asheville has won a place on the Dixie Highway, for all the advantages which will be secured by Asheville will also be secured by Hendersonville. The following clipping, taken from the Asheville Energy, a monthly organ of the Asheville Board of Trade, tells of some of these advantages:

“The winning of a place for Asheville on the Dixie Highway, and the incorporation of the road from Knoxville to Waynesboro, Georgia, as a part of the great Dixie Highway system is a distinct accomplishment, bringing extraordinary advantages to Asheville that will grow year after year. Already a larger number of inquiries as to the route and condition of the road from the west into Asheville is apparent in the mail at the Board of Trade office. During the latter part of May twenty army trucks, big Nash Quad Four Wheel Drive cars, passed through Asheville from the west to Camp Wadsworth at Spartanburg. A large number of other army trucks and cars have passed over this part of the Dixie Highway to the south and east. An increasing number of tourist cars are coming into Asheville from the west. With the opening of the eastern branch of the Dixie Highway north of Knoxville to Lexington, Ky., a decided increase will be felt as quickly as the opening of that line becomes known. Col. A.T. Sanford, director for East Tennessee, stated at the Chattanooga meeting of the Dixie Highway directors that he fully expected the Eastern branch to be ready for use this fall. A change of route was made, taking away the highway from two counties north of Knoxville, moving the line farther to the west passing through Clinton Coal Creek, La Follette and Jellico, where there is a passable road now.

N. Buckner of Asheville and T.W. Cothran of Greenville, S.C., were elected directors to represent the Carolina Division of the Dixie Highway, by which the new addition will be known. When the concrete is finished on the line between Asheville and the Henderson county line and the three miles of asphalt beyond Weaverville shall be completed, there will be about 26 miles of paved road on the Dixie Highway in Buncombe county. The mile and a half of clay road from Ivy bridge toward Blackstock is now being sanded by thirty-eight wagons and the work will be completed at an early date. Rapid progress is being made on the laying of the cement road toward the Henderson county line, and the county force is now ready to enter the cutoff at Busbee, which will leave the main road open to Hendersonville for the entire summer. The cutoff is about a mile and a half or two miles long, and will keep the concrete force and grading force busy during the busy months of July and August, when the last remaining short link of the main road is to be concreted. It is said that this is the only concrete road in the South outside of the incorporated limits of cities.”