The town began in the 1860s when the three Kershaw brothers, who danced and played and sang their way across the Plains to the tune of Dixie, settled here at the confluence of Mud and Dry Creeks. The crossing at this point soon came to be known as Dixie Crossing. Today it is an attractive little town.

Southwest of Dixie, the slopes become less steep; and wide, far-flung valleys hemmed in by gently rolling hills alternate with expanses of level fields, as US 410 descends into the Walla Walla Valley. Here the Walla Walla (Ind. “little river people”) fished in the many streams, pastured their ponies on the bunchgrass and wild rye, and hunted in the foothills of the Blue Mountains to the south. At first, settlers farmed the lowlands only, but after the discovery that the benchlands would produce good crops of grain, cultivation was rapidly extended.