Utah's Dixie

Dixie is a nickname for the populated, lower-elevation area of south-central Washington County, the southwest corner of the State of Utah, bordering nearby Arizona to the south, and Nevada to the west. The area lies in the northeastern Mojave Desert, south of Black Ridge and west of the Hurricane Cliffs. Its winter climate is significantly milder than the rest of Utah.

Originally settled by Southern Paiutes, the area became part of the United States after the Mexican–American War, in the subsequent Mexican Cession of 1849 of lands in the old Southwest. The following year, portions of it were organized by the United States Congress and approved by the U.S. president as the new federal Utah Territory. In 1854, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) moved to the area from the Great Salt Lake region to establish church president and territorial governor Brigham Young's intended Indian mission in the region.^[1] After arrival, the settlers led by Jacob Hamblin in Santa Clara, began growing cotton and other temperate cash crops in and around the town. By 1860, the Paiute native population had declined due to disease and gradual displacement by the new white settlers.^[2][3]

Because of the warmer climate, the importance of cotton crops grown in the region, and the Southern origin of some early settlers, the area was nicknamed Utah's "Dixie”. This referenced the original Dixie, the nickname for The South of the eleven southern states of the United States further east that had seceded and formed the temporarily independent Confederate States of America government, which lost the subsequent American Civil War.