Birthplace of “Dixie” Plaque in New Orleans: A Small Marker with a Complicated History

A short walk from Jackson Square in New Orleans’s French Quarter, a small plaque marks the “Birthplace of Dixie.” I happened to stumble onto the plaque while staying at the nearby Hotel Monteleone. 

Everyone has heard of the South being called Dixie. It was immortalized in the 1859 song by Dan Emmett, “Dixie’s Land,” which would become the unofficial anthem of the Confederate States of America. 

However, the story goes back further than that. Where the plaque stands today was the site of the Citizens State Bank from 1835 to 1924. In its early years, the bank issued its own $10 bank notes with the French word “Dix” meaning “ten” printed on the bill’s face.

As use of the currency spread, people started calling where it was from as “the land of the Dix”, and eventually it was shortened to “Dixieland,” which is now synonymous with the South. 

However, there is another theory about the origin of “Dixie.”  Some believe the term comes from the surname of Jeremiah Dixon, one of the men who surveyed the Mason-Dixon line, which separates Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia.

The full truth will never be known, but it’s probably fair to say there is some truth in both ideas.