The Lee Highway was a national auto trail in the United States, connecting New York City and San Francisco, California, via the South and Southwest. After receiving a letter on January 15, 1919, from Dr. Samuel Myrtle Johnson of Roswell, New Mexico, David Carlisle Humphreys of Lexington, Virginia, put out a call for a meeting in Roanoke, Virginia, to form a new national highway association. On December 3, 1919, five hundred men from five states met in Roanoke to officially form the Lee Highway Association. The auto trail was named after Robert E. Lee. From the memoirs of Katherine Johnson Balcomb, published in The Balcomb Family Tree Book: "Promoting a coast-to-coast highway across the southern tier of states as a memorial to General Robert E. Lee was considered by my father as his crowning achievement. As the number and speed of automobiles increased, there arose a demand for good roads to run them on. Cities along logical routes for highways banded together to promote construction of roads to come through their towns. The first transcontinental highway that was thus promoted was conceived as a memorial to Abraham Lincoln and ran through the northern states. Father's concept was a companion highway that would start at Washington, run south and then west to the Pacific coast. He organized The Lee Highway Association and set about selling the idea to the cities along its logical routing. The idea, of course, had a great appeal in the South and he was able to induce prominent men to serve in the Association. The first president was Claudius Houston, Tennessee, undersecretary to Herbert Hoover. Cordell Hull, later to become Secretary of State, served on the board and later as president of the Association. Father had the title of Director General and received a good salary and liberal expense money."
Routing
The route of the Lee Highway is now roughly designated by the following routes:
* The Lee Highway was defined by the General Assembly on March 20, 1922, to run from the District of Columbia at the Francis Scott Key Bridge to Bristol at the border with Tennessee. This was defined as U.S. Route 211 and U.S. Route 11 in 1926; US 211 northeast of Warrenton is now U.S. Route 29. It now uses the following business routes:
** U.S. Route 29 Business and U.S. Route 211 Business in Warrenton
* The portion of US 11 known as Apperson Drive inSalem, Virginia, and Brandon Avenue SW in Roanoke, Virginia, is also commonly called Lee Highway. Other sections of US 11 in the Roanoke Valley are not typically referred to as Lee Highway. In the county of Botetourt, US 11 transitions from Williamson Road to Lee Highway and is thus named at least until Buchanan, Virginia
The "Lee Highway Blues" is a standard of southern string band music, widely attributed to G. B. Grayson of the popular Grayson and Whitter string band of the late 1920s, who recorded it under the title "Going Down The Lee Highway" but almost certainly composed by fiddler James McCarroll of the Roane County Ramblers. The tune has been used as a fiddler's showpiece especially in the Virginia area by well-known fiddlers, notably Scotty Stoneman, and by string band revivalists such as the Highwoods String Band. For an outstanding rendition of Lee Highway Blues see CMH Records, Inc., CD9037, artist: Chubby Wise. This cut was also recorded on Pioneering Women of Bluegrass, Alice Gerrard & Hazel Dickens; this album is in the Smithsonian collection. David Bromberg wrote and performs a whimsical bluegrass tune, "The New Lee Highway Blues", describing the tribulations of traveling on an endless highway of one horse towns. Also, fiddler Ken Clark performed a tune called Lee Highway Ramble.
