commission makes the plans and specifications for that and,

commission makes the plans and specifications for that and, as I said before, the work is paid for jointly.”

This all changed in 1932 with the passage of the Byrd Road Act and the creation of the Secondary Highway System whereby Virginia took over everything related to those roads. The act provided that a State Highway Department representative meet with the county board of supervisors annually at a public hearing and discuss plans for the secondary system in the county. After which discussion each such board of supervisors made written recommendations to the Department of Highways as to the expenditure of funds.

So it was in 1932. So it still is in 1998. It is also interesting to note that the Rappahannock Board of Supervisors was very much against the transfer of the county’s roads to the state. In the end, though, the county decided not to stay out in the cold.

Now back to the Lee Highway story. In late 1929, most of Lee Highway had been built except for two short stretches, one being in Rappahannock County. A resolution passed by the board of supervisors on Nov. 7, 1929, requested the state to provide funds to finish the road. Part of Rappahannock’s resolution was as follows: “Whereas: The State of Virginia, and that section [of Lee Highway] between Buckland and Sperryville especially, is getting very adverse advertising by reason of the condition of the stretch of road which cannot be properly maintained owing to the present character of construction of this road and the heavy traffic on it, in fact, people outside of the state traveling over this road remark that Virginia has constructed no memorial to our great leader, if the road they are traveling over can be considered such a memorial ...” They got the money and Lee Highway was virtually complete from coast to coast.