When creating this company, why choose the name Dixie?
It’s because of the area in which this company was created, and does business: Utah’s Dixie.
This all ties back to the founding of St. George, Utah. After early Latter Day Saint Pioneers came across the plains to settle the Salt Lake valley, they began to search out and learn about this new area of North America.
“In 1852, John D. Lee and his party explored the area which now makes up Washington County. They concluded that cotton could be grown here. In 1854, missionaries from the Indian Mission brought seeds down to Santa Clara from Parawan and raised a good crop of cotton in 1855. The seeds from the 1855 crop were used to raise an even larger crop in 1856.”
“Recognizing the likelihood of a civil war between the northern and southern states, President Brigham Young was concerned that the availability of cotton cloth might be cut off. And more generally, he wanted the Saints of the Utah Territory to be as self-sufficient as possible. So in the early spring of 1857, he called 38 families from the southern states, who were familiar with the growing of cotton, to go down to southern Utah with the specific assignment to grow cotton. This unique colonizing mission was called the Cotton Mission or Southern Mission.”
“As these people lived and worked together on this enterprise, they started to call this new area “Dixie” after their homeland. The song “Dixie” was also popular during this time which helped the southerners to reminisce about their homeland: “In Dixie’s Land I’ll take my stand and die in Dixie!” The name spread and soon the area was known as “Utah’s Dixie”, name which has stuck to this day.”
“As life went on in Dixie, the name took and a new more significant meaning, the Dixie Spirit. As the trials and tribulations of the early pioneers were overcome, hard work and cooperation led to a prospering of the community. And today, there is a pride in that heritage that engenders a striving for excellence while retaining the culture of cooperation, tolerance, and hard work.”
Washington County Historical Society, (2022, Sept 1), Utah’s Dixie Southwestern Utah, https://wchsutah.org/geography/dixie.php
We chose to name our company Dixie Ice to honor those pioneers, and to reflect the hard work we are willing to put in to make this endeavor a success.