U.S. Route 25E in Virginia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

U.S. Route 25E

Formed:

1926-1996

Virginia Routes
Primary - Secondary - History

U.S. Route 25E entered the U.S. state of Virginia until 1996, when the Cumberland Gap Tunnel opened, bypassing Virginia and directly connecting Tennessee and Kentucky. The entire length of the old road, the Wilderness Road through Cumberland Gap and the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, has been torn up and is now a dirt path.^[1]

[edit] History

The road from Bristol to Kentucky via Cumberland Gap was part of the initial state highway system as defined in 1918,^[2] numbered State Route 10. A short spur south to Tennessee was soon added,^{[citation needed]} becoming State Route 107 in the 1923 renumbering and State Route 100 in the 1928 renumbering.^[3]

Early U.S. Highway planning assigned the number U.S. Route 411 to SR 10 through Cumberland Gap to Kentucky, and no number to SR 107.^[4] By the final 1926 plan, US 411 was truncated to Cumberland Gap, and US 25E ran from Tennessee to Kentucky along SR 10 and SR 107.^[5] The State Route numbers were dropped in the 1933 renumbering.

The Cumberland Gap Tunnel opened in 1996, completely bypassing Cumberland Gap and Virginia. U.S. Route 58 was moved to a new alignment, meeting US 25E in Tennessee, and US 25E was decommissioned through Virginia. As it lay within the boundaries of the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, the National Park Service now controls the former road, and decided to return it to its pre-pavement state.