The Chickamauga National Battlefield Park is located in Ft. Oglethorpe GA along the US 27 - the "Battlefield Route" split of the western division of The Dixie Highway.
South of Chattanooga, not far from the TN-GA state line, the Iowa state monument honoring the men of Iowa who fought in the Civil War battle of Missionary Ridge (part of the Chattanooga Campaign) stands tall along the Dixie Highway. The monument was dedicated in 1904.
Engraved around its base:
"May this shaft register alike the sacrifice of our fallen brothers and our purpose to perpetuate their memory by citizenship worthyof the heritage they left us, a re-united and glorious union.
In the final contest for Missionary Ridge, four Iowa Regiments were engaged on the Confederate right flank, six others with battery on the Confederate left and rear. The movement from Rossville brought the latter past this position, ending later in the assault upon the ridge, and two days afterwards in the battle of Ringgold, GA.
The state of Iowa is proud of your achievements and renders you her homage and gratitude and with exultant heart claims you as her sons.
Iowa erects this monument in memory of all her soldiers who took part in the Battles of Lookout Mountain Missionary Ridge and Ringgold."
From the Encyclopedia of Georgia: (
visit link)
"The Dixie Highway, a network of roads connecting Canada to Florida in the early decades of the twentieth century, was an ambitious undertaking to build the nation's first north–south paved interstate highway. As the largest state in terms of area east of the Mississippi River, Georgia proved critical to the project's success, mainly because the state's size and location controlled access to Florida for anyone driving by car.
. . .
Launching of the Dixie Highway
On April 3, 1915, Georgia governor John M. Slaton and his counterparts (or their representatives) from five other states met in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the inaugural meeting of the Dixie Highway Association (DHA). While the new highway generated enthusiasm, selecting its route became a highly politicized task. . . . Macon Telegraph editor and owner William T. Anderson proposed that the DHA approve western and eastern divisions of the Dixie Highway where dual routes were warranted. . .
As a result, the Dixie Highway became a network with Sault Ste. Marie on the Canadian border as the northern terminus. From there, the highway extended southward through upper Michigan and then via ferry to Mackinaw, where the highway split into a Western Division that included Chicago and an Eastern Division that included Detroit. Following roughly parallel paths southward, the two divisions reunited at Chattanooga.
Envisioning an influx of tourists, different cities and counties competed to be part of the Dixie Highway. In Georgia, rivalries became intense—especially between Rome and Dalton, each sending hundreds of supporters to the DHA's initial meeting to argue the merits for including their city on the route. Dalton not only offered the shortest route from Chattanooga to Atlanta but also boasted that it was the "Battlefield Route" associated with Union general William T. Sherman's Atlanta Campaign, which would attract Civil War tourism. Rome made a persuasive case that it had a larger population base and could build its portion more quickly than Dalton.
As a compromise, the DHA approved two routes south from Chattanooga—one through Dalton and one through Rome—with both routes converging near Cartersville, where they rejoined the Dixie Highway's Western Division. This division then followed a route south in Georgia to Atlanta, Macon, Americus, Albany, and then on to Tallahassee, Florida.
. . .
The Dixie Highway ceased to exist by that name in 1926, when federal and state highway officials replaced named trails across America with numbered highways. Because the Dixie Highway was not a single highway, its various divisions became parts of the new U.S. numbered highway system (most notably U.S. 1, 17, 19, 25, 27, 41, and 129), plus a variety of state-numbered highways."