It was overseen by the Dixie Highway Association and funded by a group of individuals, businesses, local governments, and states.

The Western route connected Chicago, Illinois, and Miami, Florida, via Danville in Illinois; Indianapolis and Bedford in Indiana; Louisville, Elizabethtown, and Bowling Green in Kentucky; Nashville and Chattanooga in Tennessee; Atlanta, Macon, and Albany in Georgia; and Tallahassee, Gainesville, Orlando, Arcadia, and Naples in Florida.

Marie, Michigan, with Miami, running via Saginaw and Detroit in Michigan; Toledo, Bowling Green, Lima, Dayton, and Cincinnati in Ohio; Lexington in Kentucky; Knoxville and Chattanooga in Tennessee; Atlanta and Savannah in Georgia; and Jacksonville and West Palm Beach in Florida.

Marie to Pickford and then west to follow a short portion of former U.S. Route 2, replaced by Mackinac Trail.

[2] On April 3, 1915, governors of the interested states met at Chattanooga, and each selected two commissioners to lay out the route from Chicago to Miami.

The route left Chicago to the south via Danville, Illinois, and turned east to Indianapolis, where it split.

From Jacksonville, the route followed the east coast south to Miami, along the John Anderson Highway.

The commission voted to invite Michigan to the project, and to extend a branch of the east route from Dayton north to Detroit via Toledo.

[8] At the urging of locals,[9] the eastern division was realigned to a more direct path northwest from Milledgeville, Georgia, to Atlanta over the "Old Capitol Route", bypassing Macon.

Marie, became part of the eastern division of the highway, which was extended north from Detroit to Mackinaw City and across the Straits of Mackinac.

Then the primary eastern route (Knoxville to Macon) was largely paralleled and in some sections replaced by Interstate 75, which runs from Miami to Sault Ste.

A four-lane portion runs between Cygnet and Toledo, through Bowling Green, as Ohio State Route 25.

In western North Carolina, seven bronze plaques on granite pillars were placed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in the late 1920s to mark the route (which today follows US 25) of the Dixie Highway and honor General Robert E. Lee.

Two additional monuments could be found in Franklin, Ohio at the intersection of the Old Dixie Highway and Hamilton-Middletown Road, and near Bradfordville, Florida, on US 319.

[21] The name Dixie Highway is also still commonly used in portions of Michigan's Lower Peninsula, such as in the Waterford area, where it is a major thoroughfare known as U.S. Route 24.

In Indiana, the only portion of the Highway that retains its name is located in southwestern Bedford,[22][unreliable source?]

Also, the route of Dixie Highway generally parallels the coast, often running diagonally instead of straight north and south, causing irregularities in the numbering system.

Maitland, Florida, is also home to a brick section of the Dixie Highway stretching around Lake Lily.

In Hobe Sound, Florida development centers on Dixie Highway, and historic lampposts dating to around 1925 are present along the route.