User:MountainRail/Draft Staunton and James River Turnpike

Staunton and James River Turnpike
Route information
Established by Virginia Board of Public Works
Length	43.5 mi (70.0 km)
Existed	1824–1860
Time period	19th Century
Location
Country	United States
State	Virginia
Highway system
Virginia Routes Interstate US Primary Secondary Byways History HOT lanes

The Staunton and James River Turnpike was an early turnpike road in Virginia that operated between Scottsville, Virginia on the James River and Staunton, Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley.

Route Description

The Staunton and James River Turnpike began in Scottsville, where a connection with the James River and Kanawha Canal was made, and traveled northwest for 43.5 miles (70.0 km) to the town of Staunton in the Shenandoah Valley. The turnpike passed through Batesville and Waynesboro on its journey. Today, much of the former route of the turnpike is followed by Plank Road and U.S. Route 250.

Railroad

Before the arrival of the Virginia Central Railroad in Albemarle County, and its subsequent westward expansion over the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Shenandoah Valley via the Blue Ridge Railroad, a railroad had been proposed to connect Staunton with the James River and Kanawha Canal at Scottsville. Following roughly the same route as the existent turnpike, the planned Staunton and James River Railroad (sometimes referred to as the Staunton and Scottsville Railroad), was incorporated by the Virginia General Assembly on March 9, 1835. The towns of central Virginia, namely Scottsville, Charlottesville, Staunton, and Harrisonburg, began competing for railroad access in the early nineteenth-century. At the time of the incorporation of the Staunton and James River Railroad, the Louisa Railroad, predecessor of the Virginia Central, had not yet been incorporated. Thus, the plan for central Virginia's railroads was indeterminate, allowing for the competition between the towns to take place. Scottsville's proposed railroad would serve much the same purpose as the Staunton and James River Turnpike, transferring agricultural goods from Staunton to the James River and Kanawha Canal, which would then take the goods eastward to Richmond, Virginia. The charter of the Louisa Railroad, one of Virginia's first railroads westward, originally favored Harrisonburg in the early town rivalry, as a crossing of the mountains at Swift Run Gap was generally favored at this time. However, the large number of investors from Albemarle County, the Charlottesville area, and Staunton in Augusta County, Virginia, along with the lower and more feasible route over Rockfish Gap, brought the Louisa Railroad southward. The lack of available funds and investors from the town of Scottsville, combined with greater investments from Charlottesville and the arrival of the Louisa Railroad there around 1850, ultimately led to the abandonment of the plan for the Staunton and James River Railroad.