Biohazard Cleanup Near West Dix Dix, IL

Dix is a village in Rome Township, northern Jefferson County, and is part of the Mount Vernon Micropolitan Statistical Area.

Among the first settlers around Dix were two brothers named Andrews, who came from Rome, New York, around 1830; one of them established a post office called Jordan's Prairie and later platted a village he named Rome after his New York hometown.

The post office name was changed from Rome to Dix in 1865 because another Rome already existed in Illinois and the Postal Service insisted the name be changed, although the community was not legally renamed Dix until the 1960s.

One long-told story says the name Dix honors General John Adams Dix, who became one of the North's first Civil War heroes after his intercepted telegram ordered that anyone who pulled down the American flag be shot on the spot.

Dix was incorporated in 1873 - under its original name, the village of Rome - and Rome Township surrounding it still carries the old name today.

When Dix was founded it sat on the Goshen Road, the main east-west road in early Illinois, which ran from Old Shawneetown on the Ohio River to near East St. Louis on the Mississippi.

Today Dix is Exit 103 on Interstate 57, and Illinois Route 37 serves as the village's Main Street, running 9 miles south to Mount Vernon, the Jefferson County seat.

The Norfolk Southern Railway line through Dix was built around 1890 and follows the west side of Casey Creek southeast toward Mount Vernon.

Dix sits on high ground that marks the boundary between the Big Muddy River and its tributary, Casey Creek.

The 2020 census counted 469 people in Dix, living in 254 households.