Snickersville Turnpike

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, October 3, 2023

1. Snickersville Turnpike Marker

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Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, October 3, 2023

2. Snickersville Turnpike Marker (north side)

(looking south • Snickersville Turnpike is on the left)

From the National Register Nomination:
One of the many 19th-century turnpikes built in Loudoun County, today Snickersville Turnpike’s historic elements of construction and design include its width, drainage ditches, and alignment. The Snickersville Turnpike retains its near-original paved width, roughly 18 to 20 feet wide, a width that allows dual-lane travel without shoulders but is considered narrow by modern standards. The road currently is surfaced with asphalt, although earlier paving materials may be in situ beneath this material. Grading and paving techniques and materials likely evolved throughout the history of Snickersville Turnpike. During the road’s earliest history the road was likely a dirt or gravel path with a mix of smaller and larger stones and throughout the Turnpike Era it may have been improved with crushed stone, wood planks or as a macadamized road. Today the road is entirely paved from its most northern point in Bluemont to its southern terminus near Aldie. The road corridor includes approximately 6-feet-wide, parallel, grassy drainage ditches that flank the road along its length. The paved road and

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, October 3, 2023

3. Snickersville Turnpike Marker (south side)

(looking north • Snickersville Turnpike is on the right)

ditches constitute the turnpike’s current 30-foot-wide right-of-way that is owned by the Virginia Department of Transportation. In village settings, such as Bluemont, the drainage ditches are incorporated into the streetscape and inclusion of sidewalks is very limited.

The Snickersville Turnpike stretches south to north from the village of Aldie in the Bull Run Mountains to the village of Bluemont—formerly known as Snickersville—in western Loudoun County. Before colonial traders and settlers began using it for exploration and commerce in the 18th century, the route served as part of a migratory and hunting footpath for the Sherando American Indians. Chartered in 1810 and completed in 1829, the 15-mile Snickersville Turnpike passes through the late-18th and early-19th century villages of Philomont and Mountville. The Snickersville Turnpike was restored in the 20th century for automobile travel. Sharp turns were redesigned for higher speed traffic

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and rural bridges replaced earlier fords. The Snickersville Turnpike’s original contributing secondary resources, which consist of historic bridges, culverts, and ditches along the route, are made of locally sourced materials. The Snickersville Turnpike follows its original 19th- and 20th-century alignment, serving the local community, farmers, and tourists alike.

The road between Aldie and Bluemont (formerly Snickerville) in Loudoun County, via Mountville, Philomont, and Airmont, is a rural Virginia Byway known as Snickersville Turnpike (State Route 734), and includes the about 180-year-old Hibbs Bridge over Beaverdam Creek. The Snickersville Turnpike remains a rural road, designated as a Virginia Byway by the General Assembly in 1988. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2022.