DIXIE HIGHWAY and GURDON HUBBARD
Crete
This is a story of two trailblazers – and the roads they left behind for us.
Hubbard’s Trail (Crete, Illinois)
In 1818, a young fur trader named Gurdon Hubbard arrived in Chicago. He left a profound mark on the city.
At that time, he might legitimately have been called “most interesting man in the world.” He was a frontiersman, a meat packer, an insurance underwriter, a banker, a steamship magnate, a legislator, and a civic leader.
During his early days in the area, he traveled the trail from trading post to trading post between Fort Vincennes, Indiana, through Danville, Illinois, to Chicago. He was called “Swift Walker” by the Indians; he once famously covered 75 miles in one night.
Hubbard wore a path that became known as Hubbard’s Trail. In 1834, the trail officially became State Route 1. You can follow it all the way into Chicago, where we know it today as State Street.
Dixie Highway (Crete, Illinois)
Although the demand for automobiles was rapidly increasing in 1915, the idea of taking a long-distance, cross-country trip in one’s personal auto was still unthinkable. But a visionary Indiana businessman named Carl Fisher saw the future, and literally helped pave the way for a century of auto travel to come.
Fisher – who was also a partner in the Indianapolis Speedway – helped create and promote first the east-west Lincoln Highway, and then the north-south Dixie Highway, a series of connecting roads that made it possible for Chicagoans to get in their shiny new Packards, Pierce-Arrows, and Hudsons on South Michigan Avenue and make their way all the way south to the exotic beaches of Miami Beach, Florida. His idea created a whole new era in auto travel and possibly even fostered a new breed of Chicagoan: the snowbird.