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By Don Audette
Rappahannock News Writer
Almost everyone drives Lee Highway (Route 211), but few appreciate its historic legacy. Seventy-five years ago, Lee Highway was one of the famed “named” roads in the United States, along with the Lincoln Highway and the National Road.
It ran from New York City to Washington, D.C., souths west through Virginia and on to San Diego and San Francisco, where it ended after passing through 15 states. It was the first all-weather road across the country.
Rappahannock County’s dubious claim to Lee Highway fame? In over 3,000 miles of roadway, this county had the last section to be paved.
We begin the story of Lee Highway with the year 1900. This allows us to appreciate the changes in the county roads over a century. In the summer of 1900, you could lie in the warm sun on a banking along the Warrenton Turnpike, one of the old names for Lee Highway, and hear only the sounds of nature - the wind in the trees, dogs barking, birds singing. The same undisturbed sounds that have been heard for hundreds of years.
You would hear no cars or trucks. You could occasionally hear the clip-clop of horse hoofs and the creaking of wagon wheels if someone was riding by at two or four miles per hour. A horse rider made six miles an hour.
In the Turnpike Era from the late 1840s to the 1860s, the main roads in the county had been macadamized (roads made of stone). However, they were expensive to maintain and the turnpike companies lost money. By the end of the Civil War, the roadbeds and bridges in the county were in ruins. By 1900, every road in
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