Along the Back Roads –the Rise and Demise of a Town
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56 responses to “Along the Back Roads –the Rise and Demise of a Town”
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The Dixie sign was likely removed because it, like so many other names in our history are intolerable to our newly designed woken future.
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My bet is the Dixie sign is hanging in somebody’s garage as a trophy or souvenir.
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You’re right on the money, sir.
I live about a half mile from one of the Dixie signs. It gets stolen on a regular basis.
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What possible use could you have for more than one?
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There are supposed to be at least two. one on 15S and one on 6W. There might even be one on 15N/6E as you come towards it from Fork Union, I honestly don’t remember. In any even, at least one is almost always missing.
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No, no. I meant YOU. What possible use could YOU have? 😉
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Oh! I misunderstood. For me, one is enough…
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Seeing as you designed the signage it is only fitting that you should have an example of your handiwork. In addition you may even have spec’d the size of the nut and bolt used to temporarily affix it to the pole.:)
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Oh, I only designed the county signage. The regular green “place name” signs are still VDOT’s. I’m sorry if I caused any confusion.
My signs look something like this (which, to be clear is a joke, not a real sign):
I came up with this sign after a resident called my office to complain about having a tick on them after visiting the nearly 900 acre, mostly wooded, Pleasant Grove Park. I never got around to making and posting an actual sign, but the grounds crew enjoyed it..
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Very nice. People are amazing, and especially the come here’s from urban areas.
Louisa’s County Manager had a bunch of stories. They included new residents complaining about the noise the cows on the farm next door made and another demanding County repairs because her sewage was backing up. His first qualifying question when he met someone was “what kind of tractor do you have?”
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This is one of my real signs:
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Thanks for an interesting post.
Great stories, Dick! Thanks for a welcome diversion from the usual Bacon’s Rebellion fare.
“Short Lane” on Rte. 17 near Gloucester.
Was a designated post office, then a gas station, a dry goods store… but NOW, ice cream! Homemade. Really homemade on site.
enjoyed reading this, thank you.
Yes there is a Cuckoo Virginia. Home of the Paul Revere of the South, Jack Jouett.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/54b69a71ca1b4515b823af508ad2797163e96150cbc65a03f72f3031470553ed.jpg
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Intersection of Rt 522 and Rt 33 in Louisa County, right?
Just south of Mineral.
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I was by Cuckoo the afternoon of the earthquake. There was significant damage and a couple of the chimneys were down. You can see in the photo the line by the upper window where the left one was rebuilt.
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On Rt 618 roughly parallel to 33 and several miles north of Cuckoo running from Mineral to Bumpass are Dawn, Restawhile, Buckner and Bumpass itself where the road crosses the railroad track in ‘downtown’ Bumpass (locally pronounced bumpus in wisa county).
Over near Scotchtown (aka Chiswell’s Folly) in Hanover county there is an intersection that when I moved to the Richmond area was named (Word no longer used by white folks) Foot on state maps. It was subsequently updated to Negro Foot and later dropped entirely. It is the spot where the leader of a slave rebellion was drawn and quartered and part of him left as a warning. The state hysterical marker notes the proximity of Scotchtown, Patrick Henry’s home during the Revolution. The killer intersection is now marked by a flashing light, the only light between Ashland and Louisa.
Note: Norman Blake is from around Rising Fawn, Georgia. I had a friend from Devil’s Pond, Ga. Virginia is not alone with funny place names.
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I know where the community formerly known as Negro Foot is located. Weeza County is loaded with great local lore that only Virginia can produce. Spent a lot of time on the Lake near Peach Grove.
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You were way up on the cold water side. That’s just starting to be a lake around there.
My oldest boy went to 1st grade at Apple Grove, just down 522 from Cuckoo. Guess fruit trees were special in Wisa. They may not have had many other assets.
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I passed thru Apple Grove on Saturday. Unchanged. Love it!
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I worked on a congressional campaign for a candidate who lived in Louisa. The manager and communications guys who were not local referred to Wisa as “The land time forgot”. They were obviously being pretty snarky, but in some ways there is virtue in not being too up to date.
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I have a friend who lives in Bumpass.
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I was in suburban Bumpass, not far off 33.
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I grew up in the suburbs of Warsaw, where everything is back roads.
When my kids went to Woodberry Forest, I would make the drive all back roads, going left then right and explored many different paths, my favorite being where the road ended at a stream and began about 15 yards later. I got out and walked through to make sure I could pass and continued. I think that was Rt 640, Jack Jouett Rd…
As you go further West and North, lots of beauty. Rt 231 between Madison and Sperryville might be the prettiest, but I haven’t covered them all!
Now can we get back to running down UVA (the Marxists in control, not the school)?
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Rt 231. I know that road well. It is incredibly fun on a motorcycle.
That entire area was nearly destroyed by flooding on the Rapidan River that occurred about this time of year in 1995.
A portion of Rt 29, including the the Rt 29S bridge over the Rapidan was washed away.
Downstream from there, I think the river peaked at 29′ above normal in the little village of Rapidan.
We do seek out that blue Virginia Byway sign when we can. Getting off the interstate when time allows is always the good choice. My favorites involve mountain views, not the flatland along the James. Once you get further west on 6, it gets prettier. 🙂 Having just been out toward Columbia last weekend, you failed to mention the big “industry” that is passed: all the Virginia Department of Corrections facilities!
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Hey! Eyes on the road. If you wanna look, pull off! Two lane blacktop is fun diving that hones the motoring skills, the least fun of which is avoiding cars where the driver is looking at the butterflies in the outfield. 😉
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100% agree.
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Dodging potholes (in dry and wet weather) and puddles of standing water (in wet weather) is also pretty fun, and Virginia’s 2-lane roads give you plenty of opportunity to do both.
I looked at VDOT’s paving schedule map and their pavement condition map.
I noticed that the portion of Poplar Rd (aka Pothole Rd) in Fauquier County that is ranked as having “poor” pavement condition is NOT scheduled to be repaved this year.
The portion that is ranked “fair” or “good” pavement quality IS scheduled to be repaved this year.
My parents aren’t closely related enough for me to have the sort of intellectual capacity to understand how this makes any sense.
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Vermont is tearing out the pavement and going back to gravel. Of course, they actually have a frost heave.
The only reason for poor roads in Virginia is an insufficient roadbed.
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“The only reason for poor roads in Virginia is an insufficient roadbed.”
Like painting over rotted wood…
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For the most part, the 2-lane back roads in Fluvanna and Goochland counties are quite well maintained.
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They all pretty much suck in PWC, Stafford, and Fauquier, unless they’ve been recently (within the last year or two) repaved.
I think the repaving jobs on many of these 2-lane roads are about as effective as putting fresh paint on rotted wood.
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No, you are correct, those roads do suck.
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Probably because VDOT uses a “500 vpd” paving job on a “15,000 vpd” road.
I noticed today how nice the pavement looks on Parkgate Drive…that part of which doesn’t get much traffic.
The parts that do get a lot of traffic are bad. No potholes yet, but lots of cracking.
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There are only 3 reasons for roads to be in horrible shape;
1) insufficient roadbed depth,
2) untimely repairs of minor damage, and
3) overweight trucks, usually dump trucks carrying twice their rated load tearing up one road while building another. -
I’ll add
4)Poor drainage causing the roadbed to remain wet all the time. You’ll see roads that have new asphalt from about 5 feet from the edge to the inside, as though the outer half of the lane was repaved. I think this is caused by poor drainage.
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The other half of poor drainage is not maintaining drainage structures like crosspipes and driveway pipes and outfalls state road ditches are supposed to drain into.
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I never could find out if VDOT’s policy on crosspipes causing erosion is that it’s for the property owner to deal with, because I could never get anyone from VDOT to call me back. I ended up having someone line the ditch with recycled concrete.
If anyone from VDOT is reading this and has a problem with that:
Too bad. Do your job, which would’ve been to tell me that I couldn’t do that. Since you didn’t I assume you don’t care.
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VDOT’s Drainage Manual under Legal says:
“Drainage Easements Acquired by the Department
“The Department assumes maintenance responsibility within the limits of the
drainage easement.”All state roads with ditches (not private or county roads) have deeded easements to VDOT. Crosspipes run from one side of the road to the other under the road. Pipes under driveways that connect ditch sections are VDOT’s responsibility after the initial installation.
Call 1-800-FOR-ROAD and quote Code of Virginia 24VAC30-73-90.
E. Maintenance of private entrances shall be by the owner of the entrance, except that VDOT shall maintain:1. On shoulder section highways, that portion of the entrance within the normal shoulder portion of the highway.
2. On highways with ditches, the drainage pipe at the entrance.
3. On highways with curb, gutter, and sidewalk belonging to VDOT, that portion of the entrance that extends to the back of the sidewalk. If a sidewalk is not present, that portion of the entrance that extends to the back of the curb line.
4. On highways with curb, gutter, and sidewalk not belonging to VDOT, only to the flow line of the gutter pan.
5. On highways with shoulders, ditches, and sidewalk belonging to VDOT, that portion of the entrance that extends to the back of the sidewalk.
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I’ve lived in Virginia long enough to know that the prevailing attitude is that “rules and regulations are meant to be ignored”.
I’m sure that MAYBE if I got on VDOT’s case long and hard enough, I could have gotten them to what they’re supposed to do with regards to that erosion problem…
…but in the end it was just easier to pay someone to fix it.
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You get used to rural 2 laners after living in the country for awhile. The older ones with narrower right of way can be interesting as locals know where they are going and tend to step right along.
Where I am now the biggest hazards are gangs of bicyclists coming out of Richmond on weekends. They don’t understand that the twisty hilly roads with no shoulders they are enjoying are mortal hazards to them. Pop a hill or a bend moving quickly with something coming the other direction and a gaggle of cyclists in between and it’s mayhem time. Spandex is not a good cushion.
You get used to rural 2 laners after living in the country for awhile. The older ones with narrower right of way can be interesting as locals know where they are going and tend to step right along.
Where I am now the biggest hazards are gangs of bicyclists coming out of Richmond on weekends. They don’t understand that the twisty hilly roads with no shoulders they are enjoying are mortal hazards to them and they’re not really in the Tour de France. Pop a hill or a bend moving quickly with something coming the other direction and a gaggle of cyclists in between and it’s mayhem time. Spandex is not a protective garment.
For those of you on Facebook, there is a group called “Abandoned in Virginia” that has lots and lots of photos of abandoned structures throughout the state. As you’d expect, most are in rural areas since the value of the land under abandoned structures in urban and suburban areas usually means that the abandoned structure is quickly demolished.
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Usually, but this has been rotting on VA 234 Business in Manassas since before 2008:
I love country stores. I don’t know why. When I go trout fishing in Nelson County I drive my fishing buddies nuts when I have to stop and go into every country store along the way.
There is also a Rosenwald School in Fork Union, known as the Dunbar school. It is privately owned and operated. It was restored as a labor of love by it’s owner, Ms. Carmen Smith using her own funds and donations.
http://fluvannareview.com/2018/07/kids-learn-stem-at-dunbar-schoolhouse/
RE: Columbia – The rundown buildings in the first two photos at the virginiaplaces.org link are gone. The larger one was demolished last year, and the orange colored one was removed in about 2017.
Legend has it that at some point in the late 1700s Columbia came within a few votes of becoming the state capital. (Oops. That’s already in the article).
Thanks for highlighting some of the things located in my neck of the woods. I drive/ride through Columbia just about every day. If you love back roads, try Stage Junction Road running north out of Columbia the next time you’re out this way. It becomes Wilmington Road, and then if you turn left on Courthouse Road in Wilmington (another sign without a town) you’ll end up in Palmyra.
CORRECTED 12:16 06/13/2023
PS – I designed the Fluvanna signs (like the green one in your picture). Or, more accurately, I significantly modified and updated a design started by someone else. From 2012-2018 I was the Director of Public Works for Fluvanna County.
Oh, and next time you come to Fluvanna, I highly recommend you visit Pleasant Grove Park and the historic Pleasant Grove house. The historic courthouse in Palmyra is also worth seeing.
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Thanks for the tips. I did not realize that I was in your neck of the woods.
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We’ve lived out that way for about 10 years. Before that it was Rixeyville (another sign without a town) in Culpeper County for 23 years.
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I had a friend who was a Kent, ex of Kent’s store. He had relatives in Columbia too. Looks like you’re about half way between my kid in Batesville and me, but I’m not sure you can get there from here:)
Years ago I hung out with the County Administrator in Louisa. It looked to me that rural local government was pretty good, but without the resources to do much. OTOH, they couldn’t do too much either.
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The Rosenwald school in Goochland is on Hadensville-Fife Road next to the Second Union Church.
Don’t forget Frog Level – one in Caroline County and one in Tazewell County.
The one in Tazewell County is where Va. Rt. 16 and U.S. Rt. 19 intersect. It has a general store, which looked abandoned a few years ago, and a few houses. Va. Rt. 16 between Marion and Tazewell is called the Back of the Dragon, and is one of Virginia’s greatest back roads.
Southwest Virginia has many great back roads and Byways.
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I have driven that road between Marion and Tazewell and, yes, it is a great back road. I did not know that it was called Back of the Dragon.
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The volunteer fire department at Frog Level on Rt 2 in Caroline. They changed my busted water pump on the old Chevy Celebrity back in 1989. I gave the department a hundred bucks later. I had no cash on me at the moment. They took mercy on me. Paid for the parts and all. But that was a different time and a different Virginia.
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