"Dixie"? was born in New Orleans, and—of all places of romance—it was born in a bank, this most enduring of all the nicknames which have been given to the South, The Citizens Bank of Louisiana, which was organized in New Orleans in 1833, and claims to be the oldest bank in the South, was authorized about 1855 to issue paper currency. This issue was principally in. $10 denominations. As the preponderating element in New Orleans at that time was French, the bills were engraved in French as well as in English, and, on the back of the notes, the French word "dix"-~ 10—was prominently displayed. The English and American migrants called these bills "dicks," and, event, "dixies.""
Mississippi, Texas, and north along the Mississippi River, Louisiana, and particularly New Orleans, became known as the "Land o' the Dixie," and gradually the word "Dixie" came to be applied to the State, and as immigration to the Gulf Coast increased the name was applied to all the South, first as the "Land of the Dixie" and then as "Dixie Land."
In 1859 Daniel Decatur Emmett composed the song "Dixie Land" as a "walk-around" for Bryant's minstrels. He frequently had heard
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.