If you’re not too persnickety, the easiest way to drive the Dixie Highway’s western mainline in Indiana is just to follow US 136. You will miss a few old alignments in so doing, but your cruising will be eased by needing only to follow the marked highway. If you’ve read this blog at all, you know I’m persnickety. Naturally, I followed all of the old alignments. The longest old alignment stretches about 8½ miles from Covington to just past Veedersburg at US 41.
The road is narrow with no shoulders, which suggests that the road saw few improvements while it was still the state highway. When Indiana chose to seriously invest in its road here, it chose to build a new alignment to the north.
Most of this road is signed Dixie Bee Road. A competing auto trail known as the Dixie Bee Line connected Chicago and Nashville, Tennessee, via Danville, Illinois and Terre Haute, Indiana. My 1920s Indiana road maps show the Dixie Bee Line following a different path from this road, but given that some auto trails’ routes changed frequently, it is still possible that this was once the Dixie Bee Line as well as the Dixie Highway. After all, this segment ends at US 41, which leads directly to Terre Haute.
When Dixie Bee Road reaches Veedersburg, its name changes to State Street. It cuts across Veedersburg’s south side and then crosses Coal Creek on on this great pony-truss bridge.
Except for rust and a bent railing where a vehicle nudged it, the bridge looks to be quite solid. Whenever you see equilateral triangles in a truss bridge, you know you’re looking at a Warren truss.
These trusses are massive, stretching about eight feet above the deck.
About a mile east of the bridge, the Dixie Highway meets US 41. US 136 rejoins the historic alignment from here west.
I once came upon a suspension bridge on an old highway alignment in Illinois. Check it out!
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