 Part of the track of the highway was once known as the Trader's Path, a colonial trail dating from the 17th century that led from Augusta County, Virginia to Roanoke, Virginia.In the early 1970s, the former Virginian Railway right-of-way along the north bank of the New River eastward from a point near the Virginia-West Virginia border, near Glen Lyn to Narrows (both in Virginia) was acquired by VDOT's predecessor agency from the Norfolk and Western Railway to enable four-laning of the highway through the narrow space between the river and rocky bluffs.