The Dixie Diner opened at 39 Summit Avenue, Hagerstown, Maryland in 1932. It was built by Ward and Dickinson of Silver Creek, NY. The Hotel Dagmar, mentioned in the opening day notice, is still there.

Pictured next is a cleaned up version of their matchbook. The full version can be seen here. The owner, R.F. Shetler, operated another Ward and Dickinson in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the Carlisle Diner/ Carlisle Grill. More on that later.

The Dixie Diner operated for seventeen years at that location, offering steak dinners for every home run for the local baseball team. But as seems to be the case all too often, the diner was on leased land, which was sold out from under it. The land was bought by the neighboring Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company, who used the site for additional parking. When you consider that a Ward and Dickinson of this type is in the 10′ by 25′ size range, that’s one or two parking spaces. If you look at the last news story, from 1957, it says the telephone now has a parking place at that site.

The diner had been managed by R.F. Shetler’s brother, Earl Shetler. After the diner’s closing, he moved to manage the nearby Potomac Diner.

The diner may have been moved to the intersection of Rt. 11, Elizabeth St. and Center St. That location had a fire in 1967 from children playing with matches. I haven’t been able to determine whether the Dixie Diner at that location was the same one that was moved.