Dixie highway was a name given to the road leading from U. S. 31 in Ferrysburg east through Nunica to Coopersville all the way to Detroit. Before 1922 it was mostly a gravel road. The first cement started in Spring Lake extended east toward Nunica. It was only eight foot in width for the first few miles, but later was widened to sixteen feet allowing two vehicles to meet without either getting off onto the shoulder. The channel of Crockery creek was altered and a new bridge was installed called a Came l back bridge . The construction followed the pattern of many highway bridges biult in the 1920's. There were many crooks and turns in the road where it followed the contours of the land. One of the most notible ones was about a mile east of Nunica where t he road came over a hill and made two very sharp turns at the bottom. This became the scene of many accidents and earned the nickname od dead mans curve.

      Elinor [Wezeman] Wiersma tells the story of how her father Albert Wezeman coped with the many accidents. The Wezeman home was situated on top of the hill overlooking the "S" curve and their driveway led down hill to the highway. At the sound of a c rash the family would be activated, Dad [Albret] would run to the crash, one boy stopped at the foot of their driveway , another took up a position at the top and one of the girls stood at the back door of the house , withmother [Elsie] manning the telp hone. Dad determined the course of action necessary to handle situation, he called the information to the first child who relayed it on up to the next and so on until mother knew who to call. She had all of the numbers posted so that there was no delay in calling the proper authorities.

      Sometime later after the hard surfacing was completed the name of the highway was changed to U. S. 16. In the 1930's the road was rerouted through Main Street of Nunica onto the old interurban right of way to Fruitport giving the road two ninety degree turns within the town. They changed the name of this new section to U.S. 16 also calling it Apple Ave.