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By Don Audette
Rappahannock News Writer
In the first decade of the 1900s, what was to become Lee Highway (Route 211) in the county included two turnpikes that ran from Thornton Gap through Rappahannock to Warrenton. For the sake of brevity, we will call the whole stretch the Warrenton Turnpike.
The turnpike was a dirt road, as were all roads then in the county. Most were curvy, one-lane affairs, with ruts that acted as channels for the wheels of carts.
In the summer, dust commonly covered the dirt roads to a depth of two to three inches. At other times, melting snow and rain turned the roads into quagmires of muck and mud. Horses, oxen, mules, wagons, buggies, everything bogged down. To put one’s “shoulder to the wheel” had real meaning in those days.
All the county turnpikes led to railroads located in towns outside of the county, but there was a time in the mid-1800s when the Warrenton Turnpike led to a canal. It led to a small place called Waterloo on the Rappahannock River in Culpeper County, just beyond the county line. The canal ran all the way to Fredericksburg, a town in heavy competition with Alexandria for sea and inland trade.
From 1849 to about 1860, the county had an economical way to send its products to market and receive goods in return. Flatboats, capable of carrying very large cargoes, moved downstream at four to five mph. Sperryville also had access via a Hazel River
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