ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, September 18, 1996 TAG: 9609180106
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HARRISONBURG (AP)
SOURCE: PAT MURPHEY DAILY NEWS-RECORD
The Rockingham County Farm Bureau wants to reopen Browns Gap, once a prominent route across the Blue Ridge Mountains.
At its annual meeting earlier this month, the 2,300-member Farm Bureau passed a resolution asking local, state and federal governments to cooperate in building a road from Harrisonburg to Charlottesville via Browns Gap.
A road across the Blue Ridge through Browns Gap above Port Republic isn't a new idea. In the 1800s, the route was a turnpike.
Browns Gap takes its name from Brightberry Brown and his family, who received a charter from the General Assembly in 1800 to build the turnpike, according to Shenandoah Valley historian John Wayland.
Stonewall Jackson used the gap to move his army east at the start of his 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign. The move lulled Union generals into thinking Jackson had abandoned the valley and allowed him to surprise Federal forces at McDowell.
The use of Browns Gap faded after U.S. 33 was built through Swift Run Gap to the north and U.S. 250 through Rockfish Gap to the south. Interstate 64 also now passes through Rockfish Gap.
Both Wayland and Steve Saufley say that a Browns Gap road would cut 10 to 15 miles off a trip from Harrisonburg to Charlottesville.
``It also would bring people down off Skyline Drive to visit the battlefields and the valley,'' said Saufley in pointing out the economic benefits of the road.
Saufley, a former president of the Rockingham Farm Bureau, said he's afraid the proposal will not get any further than Wayland's 1958 revival attempt.
The road would pass through a Shenandoah National Park wilderness area. Saufley said that probably is an even bigger obstacle than the millions of dollars needed to build the road.
``The federal people already have said they would oppose it all the way,'' Saufley said. ``I think it is a good idea, but we'll never see it.''
Saufley envisions the road as more of a scenic route than an alternate to I-64. It should be a two-lane road closed to truck traffic, he said.
In his 1958 proposal, Wayland suggested the Browns Gap route could include a tunnel through the Blue Ridge. Although the tunnel would be more costly to build, it would be ``much safer in fogs and snowstorms,'' he wrote at the time.
LENGTH: Short : 50 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Map by staff.by CNB