With the Restoration and additional tourism traffic generated by
Colonial Williamsburg beginning in the late 1920s, Merrimack Trail was built in the early 1930s to supplement
U.S. Route 60 as part the
State Route 168 project which extended all the way east to North Carolina. The Merrimack Trail portion of VA-168 extended on the
Virginia Peninsula from Anderson Corner near
Toano to a crossing of
Hampton Roads to
South Hampton Roads by ferry, prior to the opening of the
Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel on November 1, 1957. The ferry, which connected to Norfolk at the end of 99th Street at Pine Beach, charged a toll of automobile and driver, $1 and $1.25 for each additional passenger. The name originated because the road lead to a ferry landing in
Newport News was located near the historic location of the
Battle of Hampton Roads between the
ironclad warships in March 1862 during the
American Civil War. The Confederate ironclad
C.S.S. Virginia had been built from the hull of the
U.S.S. Merrimack, partially burned by Union troops evacuating the
Norfolk Naval Shipyard the previous year. In the 1960s, as the new
Interstate 64 was completed, major portions of VA-168 west of
Old Point Comfort were redesignated as
State Route 143. == References ==