Toledo, Ohio
Beginning at the Michigan border, there have been two popular routes between Detroit and Toledo, witnessed by the closely parallel routes of U.S. 24 (Telegraph Road) and U.S. 25 (Detroit Avenue) for many years. Once upon a time, the federal routes actually overlapped on Detroit Avenue in Toledo, but today only U.S. 24 is marked, while the U.S. 25 designation was dropped in deference to Interstate Route 75. The Dixie Highway would have reached downtown Toledo by way of Collingwood Avenue and Jefferson Avenue (one guide has Madison Avenue) before turning southwest at St. Clair Street. Modern travelers will now have to follow Summit Street out of downtown, because St. Clair Street is no longer a through street.
Leaving downtown Toledo, the earliest guide books chart a preferred route which crossed the Maumee River at the old Fassett Street Bridge, which disappeared from the highway maps after 1959. In 1923, this would become the path of State Route 6, passing through Rossford before turning south at Perrysburg. On the 1926 map, a tentative U.S. 25 shield is shown on this same alignment. However, subsequent maps indicate that U.S. 25 was moved to the north side of the river, following Broadway Street out of Toledo and into Maumee—crossing the river at the historic bridge at the south end of Conant Street. The Dixie Highway route through Rossford was then renumbered as a part of U.S. 23. By the 1940s, the route of U.S. 25 would completely avoid downtown Toledo with an alignment that followed the newly constructed Anthony Wayne Trail easterly from Maumee to an intersection with Detroit Avenue, where it turned north for several miles to meet the previous alignment.
To reach the Rossford side of the river, turn left from Summit Street to cross the Anthony Wayne Suspension Bridge, which hosts State Route 2, State Route 51, and State Route 65. Follow the signs of State Route 65 out of the Toledo city limits, by way of Oak Street, Fassett Street, and Miami Street to meet the original alignment. In downtown Rossford, State Route 65 curiously becomes either Dixie Highway (southbound) or Superior Street (northbound), depending on which side of the boulevard one is traveling. Between Rossford and Perrysburg, the route is marked as Dixie Highway, then River Road.
Source: IN SEARCH OF . . . THE DIXIE HIGHWAY IN OHIO
