Elaine Egdorf has lived in the south suburbs just about her whole life.
A longtime Homewoood resident, she’s shared stories of youthful sledding excursions down the embankment of the Calumet River in North Harvey and knowing it was time to head home for dinner when the Illinois Central’s Green Diamond train crossed the river bridge on its way to New Orleans.
She and her brother would ride the IC down to the Calumet station to rent horses at a farm along Dixie Highway in what’s now East Hazel Crest. She organized fundraising dances at the old Washington Park Racetrack along Illinois Route 1.
She later discovered one of her ancestors was an early quarry owner in Thornton, an area long known for its quality limestone.
Another early speculator in Thornton limestone was Gurdon Hubbard, a former fur trader whose footprints were literally all over northern Illinois in the years just after it became a state.
He was nicknamed “The Swift Walker,” possibly by himself, as much of what’s know about his early exploits comes from his autobiography. But Hubbard had transported enough goods and livestock between his trading post on the Iroquois River and farms in Danville and the early settlement of Chicago that a dirt path linking those towns to the pre-statehood territorial capital city of Vincennes, Indiana, had by the 1830s became known as Hubbard’s Trail.
That same decade, during Hubbard’s lone term in the Illinois House, Hubbard’s Trail was designated the state’s first officially marked road. It also was known as Vincennes Road, parts eventually became Illinois Route 1, and its path in downtown Chicago is still known as State Street.
Less than a century later, another entrepreneur wrested naming rights of the old trading path away from Hubbard.
In his book “The Dixie Highway in Illinois,” historian James Wright describes how Carl Fischer, who sold headlamp parts for the new automobile industry, worked with the Good Roads Movement to establish the paved Lincoln Highway in 1913.
Fisher, who also helped establish the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, may have had more personal motives for his next Good Roads project, the Dixie Highway. Rather than just one route, the Dixie Highway had several fingers leading from both coasts of Michigan as well as Chicago, all coalescing at seaside Miami, where Fisher owned real estate.
Like all of the other named roads established during the dawn of the age of motorcars, the Dixie Highway officially lost its name in the 1930s as governments took over the roadways and switched to a numbering system for major thoroughfares. The old names hung on in a few places, including parts of several south suburbs, where Dixie Highway street signs were interspersed with those for Illinois 1, Vincennes Avenue and Chicago Road.
It was a historical remnant to latch onto for a towns like Homewood and Flossmoor, where the roadway wends a diagonal path southeast and is still proudly retains Fischer’s name for it.
As the new millennium dawned, Egdorf, a longtime resident with a keen interest in local history and lots of connections, was asked by Homewood’s mayor to put together an event linked to Dixie Highway.
“I think he was thinking of a festival to celebrate Dixie Highway, but I wasn’t into festivals. But I knew all of the historical societies up and down the Dixie Highway,” said Egdorf, then a board member of the Illinois Historical Society.
Recently widowed, she threw herself into the project, and in April 2000, traveled the Dixie Highway to Danville starting conversations with groups in all the towns in between.
“We wanted to see if people were interested in doing a drive,” she said. “They were interested.”
Drivin’ the Dixie was born. Its initial run in June 2001 had groups leaving simultaneously from Blue Island and Danville, meeting in the middle at the end of the day at an island park in Momence, with stops in nearly every town along the way.
The first event was filled with pomp, including a send off in Blue Island from Gov. George Ryan and a police escort for the pace vehicles.
Classic car clubs made up a lot of the parade, but everyday vehicles were welcome too, and organizers created passports people could get stamped at historic locations along the way that could be turned in for prizes at the end.
“We finished on the island in Momence and had a dance band and everything,” Egdorf said. “It was supposed to be fun, and all the towns were pleased to promote their history.”
Stops included views of the art deco architecture at Bloom High School in Chicago Heights, a free hot dog lunch in Steger and, until it was sold, the route included a pop-in opportunity for horse racing at Balmoral Park in Crete.
“Looking back, we did so many things to try to make it fun,” Egdorf said. “The Model A Ford club even had a poker run involved.”
That club, A’s R Us Model A Ford Club of America, also helped administer the event, handling registration each year. Another group of classic tech enthusiasts, the Tri-Town Radio Amateur Club, established in 1931, handled communications along the way, with members “keeping track of everything going on in each town, helping if someone broke down or needed help before everyone had cellphones,” Egdorf said.
As the years went on, motorists coming from the south became fewer and that flow finally petered out, Egdorf said, but interest remained high in the northern route of Drivin’ the Dixie.
“Frankly, the most supportive town has been Markham,” she said, noting she had commemorative keychains made one year to distribute to volunteers. “In some towns I gave three, some 10. Markham had 40 volunteers! There were different organizations providing food, they had bake sales, music, a little car show.
“Of all the years I’ve been around, I’ve never been in the Markham Roller Rink. They opened that up for us.”
In 2019, the 18th running of Drivin’ the Dixie, organizers decided to reverse the flow, starting in Momence and ending up in Blue Island, where an old time base ball exhibition was planned.
That event was marred by a storm at the end, but “people stayed around in the rain to get their door prizes,” Egdorf said.
The pandemic put a stop to Drivin’ the Dixie in 2020 and 2021, and it’s unlikely to return this summer, Egdorf said.
The group that had been handling registrations bowed out, citing aging membership, and others who had stepped in indicated they wanted to cancel. Egdorf saw hope when Momence-based Van Drunen Farms volunteered to take over registration duties, but then a fire severely damaged that business earlier this month.
And some key volunteers have died and others are dealing with health issues.
“The only one anxious to do it was Markham,” Egdorf said. “They said maybe just do a drive-thru. But another town said they wouldn’t be able to get volunteers. It just seems like it wouldn’t be workable this year.”
Could it be gone for good?
“That’s hard to predict,” Egdorf said. “Things change and time goes on. I hope it’s not the end, but I think we would have to have a whole crew of younger people to do it.
“We really had a lot of support from a lot of the towns. But as time goes by, these people get older or die or whatever. I think it would be pretty hard to get some of these people to get involved again.”
Even if the 2019 rainstorm in Blue Island drew the final curtain on Drivin’ the Dixie, the event’s 18-year run left a mark on the south suburbs. Registration money helped pay for graphic signs in each community along the Dixie Highway noting its historical significance, and it helped shine a positive light on some of the towns along the way.
Its example may have paved the way for Southland beverage mongers to create the Dixie Highway Brewery Trail, using the road’s imagery and passport model to help drive business at local establishments.
There are also some official Illinois Department of Transportation red and white striped historical route signs along the path, as well as a few metal historical markers.
“There are some permanent things that people can learn from now, and maybe that’s our legacy,” Egdorf said.
But more important than that, even to a history buff, were “the wonderful, supportive people that were willing to spend time on it,” she said.
“We won a statewide award from the state Historical Society, but to me the best part was meeting the kind and generous people all up and down the line,” she said. “Learning the history was important, and the experience was important, but it really was the people I met.”
According to “The History of the Thornton Quarry” by historian Debbie Lamoureux, Gurdon Hubbard’s quarry operation in Thornton was a failure.
Perhaps competition from Egdorf’s ancestor contributed. But the path Hubbard helped pave has guided her to a different kind of reward.
“The history was great, the fun was great, but it came down to kind and generous people, and that’s what I think of every day,” Egdorf said.
“All the negative things that are happening in the world today, whether it’s COVID, or storms, or people shooting people, then you have all of these other people who are kind and doing good things. That lifts your spirit.”
Landmarks is a weekly column by Paul Eisenberg exploring the people, places and things that have left an indelible mark on the Southland. He can be reached at peisenberg@tribpub.com.
