Dixon’s pedestrian bridge that’s being constructed over the Rock River near Dixon High School has officially been named Petunia Crossing after City Council members voted to approve it Monday.

The bridge, expected to be completed in June, will extend from the multi-use path that runs west of Heritage Crossing over the Rock River using the old Illinois Central Railroad piers and end near the band shell in Page Park. It’s the focal point of Dixon’s $12 million development, largely funded by grants and known as Project Rock, that also includes building an additional 2.8 miles of multi-use path, and resurfacing just less than a mile of Page Drive.

The naming of the bridge has “raised a lot of interest and discussion within the community,” Dixon Mayor Glen Hughes said.

“We’re approving what the public put forth before us,” Council member Mike Venier said.

After a community member gave a presentation proposing the now-selected name of Petunia Crossing at the council’s April 20 meeting, council members decided to get the community more involved in the naming process, Hughes said.

The city received almost 500 name proposals through the online submissions that Discover Dixon set up on its website. Those submissions were narrowed down by a committee made up of city and community leaders to four options, which were Liberty Crossing, Petunia Crossing, Founders Crossing and Castle View Crossing, Hughes said.

A lot of submissions also included the names of historic people who had an impact on the city, such as its founder John Dixon, or another important figure, John Dement, among others, Hughes said.

“It was difficult to decide, you know, do we put one or the other out there, and so there was kind of a compromise reached of...’Founders Crossing,’” Hughes said.

The committee put those four final names in an online poll, which received a total of 1,279 votes. Petunia Crossing led the way with 539 votes, Hughes said.

“It was fun for the committee to sit back and see all the interaction and the excitement from the community. This is how good government works. There’s transparency, there’s involvement, there’s excitement,” Dixon City Manager Danny Langloss said.

There should be excitement, Langloss added. “This project has been a vision of 20 years plus in the making...and within a month it’s going to be open for this community to enjoy.”

The majority of the project is funded by an $11.9 million grant through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity program, according to city records.

Its completion will close out the city’s riverfront development master plan, which began in 1998. The plan includes four projects: the construction of Heritage Crossing, completed in 2009; the installation of a multi-use path that extends east along River Road from Galena Avenue to Route 2, also completed in 2009; the Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program multi-use path that runs west along the Rock River, completed in July 2024; and Project Rock.