Andrew Lewis Memorial Highway

On 13 March 2001 the General Assembly designated that portion of Interstate Route 81 within the boundaries of Rockbridge, Botetourt, and Roanoke counties, and the city of Salem as the "Andrew Lewis Memorial Highway."

Andrew Lewis (1720–1781), soldier and Revolutionary-era patriot, came from a family that played a major role in the settlement of the Virginia frontier. His parents emigrated from Ireland and reached Augusta County by 1732. Lewis developed into a skilled frontiersman and surveyor, buying large tracts of land and building a homestead near the present site of Salem. He became an important political leader in Augusta and Botetourt counties, serving at various times as a justice of the peace, sheriff, colonial legislator, and member of the Virginia revolutionary conventions.

But Lewis's chief claim to fame was as a military leader. He served with George Washington in the Ohio campaigns in 1754–55, and he was imprisoned by the French during the 1758 expedition to Ft. Duquesne. After his release, Lewis helped to negotiate several important treaties with the Indians, including the Treaty of Ft. Stanwix. During Dunmore's War, he won a decisive victory at Point Pleasant over the Shawnee Indians, who nine days later signed a treaty conceding all of their land south of the Ohio River to Virginia. When the American Revolution started, Congress commissioned Lewis a brigadier-general, and he assumed command of the forces at Williamsburg that drove royal Governor Dunmore from Gwynn's Island.

Lewis resigned his commission in the Continental Army in 1777 but continued to serve his state in the militia and as a member of Virginia's Executive Council.