Dixon, MO

Dixon is a small city in northern Pulaski County, laid out on both sides of the Frisco tracks in 1869. The first settlement was a railroad workers’ camp, and surveyor Milton Santee gave the new place the name of Dixon, Illinois, his home-state connection. The rail line still cuts through town, with the occasional midday whistle keeping the origin obvious. Up on a rolling Ozark foothill, Dixon also sits near the headwaters of the north-flowing Maries River, while streams on the south and east drain toward the Gasconade.

The present-day center is practical and local. Dixon R-I runs elementary, middle, and high schools; the Jessie E. McCully Memorial Library sits beside Dixon Lions Club Park; and State Highways 28 and 133 bring traffic through the city. The town’s trade area includes a grocery and pharmacy, restaurants, repair shops, the weekly newspaper, and Gascosage Electric Cooperative. Outside the city limits, the Dixon Saddle Club’s arena hosts horse and mule shows. The local scoop is a railroad-born Ozark foothill city whose river headwaters, school, library, and working businesses all still sit in the same frame.