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An old stage wagon that John Wayland used some 60 years ago to haul kids to classes was the beginning of Rappahannock’s school bus fleet, according to Mutt Atkins, school bus driver from 1929 until 'his retirement in 1973.
In 1929, Mutt’s brother James Atkins had a contract with the county school board to provide bus transportation. “He furnished the chassis and they furnished the body. The chassis cost about $750 and we used old wooden bodiesJn those days. Five hundred dollars would have been a good price for them,” Mutt said.
Mutt first drove for his brother and then worked directly for the school board after James Atkins sold his bus to the county. “I made big wages,” he joked. “$1.50 per day and I paid for the gas.”
“Most of the time, you didn’t get anywhere in the winter without chains on,” Mutt recalled. Routes 211 and 522 were the only paved roads in the county; the rest hardly qualified as more than muddy wagon tracks.
The early buses weren’t in much better shape than the early roads. ‘We had one bus body that looked like it was made of slats. It ran from Peola into Sperryville and we called it the Peola dog wagon. When it would get stuck in the morning, the boys would climb off and push it over the hill—right into the ditch. On purpose so they wouldn’t have to go to school,” Mutt recalled, shaking his head and laughing.
As the automotive age reached Rappahannock County, school buses became more recognizable as school buses. “We switched to factory-made bodies, all yellow. They were 1936 Chevrolets. 1 remember going to Oxford, North Carolina, to
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