by Dick Hall-Sizemore

Whenever I travel to anywhere west of the Blue Ridge that is south of Staunton, I take U.S. Rt. 60. Such trips usually include a stop at a restaurant at Cumberland Courthouse that serves some of the best fried oysters in the Commonwealth and at a decent price, along with lemon meringue pie. If I am going to Lexington, that two-lane road over the Blue Ridge between Amherst and Buena Vista is fun to drive, although I would not recommend using it if it is raining, at night, or during the winter.

In 1969, U.S. Rt. 60 from Richmond to Lexington was designated by the General Assembly as “ the James A. Anderson Highway.” There are signs along the roadside at various intervals that inform motorists of that designation. Most such highway designations recall politicians whose names are familiar, but this one drew a blank for me, and I always wondered who James A. Anderson was and why he merited having a highway named for him.

Brig. Gen. James A. Anderson was the Virginia State Highway Commissioner from 1941-1957. Before being appointed commissioner, he had a distinguished career at the Virginia Military Institute and state and federal government. 

Anderson graduated from VMI first in his class of 1913, winning the school’s top scholastic award. After getting a master’s degree in engineering at Cornell University, he returned to VMI as an instructor in civil engineering. During World War I, he served on the Army general staff, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. After the war, he returned to VMI as acting head of the civil engineering department and in 1924 became a full professor of engineering. During this time, he also served as the town engineer for Lexington. From 1932-36, he was the Virginia director of the U.S. Public Works Administration.  He returned to VMI in 1936 and was appointed dean of the faculty and academic executive, a position that also carried the rank of brigadier general in the Virginia Militia. In 1940, he was tapped to be the Coordinator for the State Defense Council. Gov. James Price appointed him as state highway commissioner in 1941.

Anderson’s main task after the conclusion of World War II was to rejuvenate the state’s road system. As the State Highway Commission, which Anderson, as the full-time commissioner, headed, observed:

“Under the heavy pounding of war-time traffic and inadequate maintenance, some of the older highway surfaces and bridges are failing and cannot endure for any length of time without costly failure. The reconditioning or replacement of these will furnish one of the most important salvage jobs in post-war activities.”

The winter of 1945-46 was described as “the worst experienced during the history of the department… 20,000 miles of low-type road went to pieces. The continued shortage of labor, equipment, and materials had greatly handicapped efforts to make these roads serviceable throughout the year.”  Anderson set a practical, tangible goal: Not a school day lost because of mud.

A Virginia Department of Transportation history of Virginia’s road system noted, “By mid-1948, the state’s road program generally had recovered from the wartime slowdown,” and that the Highway Commissioner announced that “for the second consecutive winter, not one school bus day was lost because of mud on the roads.”

The most visible and impactful project overseen by Anderson was the construction of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, connecting Norfolk and lower Hampton Roads with Newport News, Hampton, and the Lower Peninsula. Prior to the project’s opening in 1957, a ferry was the only way to travel directly between those urban areas of the Commonwealth.

Biographical sources:

https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-progress-index-anderson-james-a-s/10454664

https://vdot.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/api/collection/myfirst/id/1440/download

https://vdot.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/api/collection/myfirst/id/11506/download