The portion in Powhatan County was named for the French Huguenot immigrants to the Virginia Colony who settled the area in the late 17th and early 18th centuries to escape religious persecution in their homeland of France.

[16] State Route 139 extended south from US 58 in Brodnax for 3.95 miles (6.36 km) along current secondary SR 659 in the direction of Ebony and the North Carolina state line (where, if it followed what was once SR 659 all the way, it would connect to what is now NC 903).

[20] State Route 140 extended south from US 1 at the Nottoway River along the old Brunswick and Roanoke Plank Road[21] via Smoky Ordinary to US 58 at Edgerton (this part is now secondary SR 712, which extends barely south from US 58 to end at SR 606), then west overlapping US 58 and south along part of SR 670 to SR 606 (also part of the old plank road) near the Lawrenceville-Brunswick Municipal Airport.

[20] SR 712 is part of the Jefferson Davis Highway as defined in 1922.

[38] However, the turnpike's crossing of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway's Peninsula Subdivision on 37th Street[39] had been closed to build Fulton Yard,[citation needed] so SR 430 jogged west on Bickerstaff Road and north to the city limits where SR 5 now crosses, at what was then 35th Street.

In 1966, the road outside Richmond was turned over to Henrico County for maintenance, and inside Richmond it became ordinary city streets, at the same time as current SR 197 was created.

6 miles (9.7 km) north from Chula Junction were added to the state highway system in 1928 as State Route 412,[46] which was extended the remaining 1.2 miles (1.9 km) to the Appomattox River in 1929.

[47] The route became SR 148 in the 1933 renumbering, with a description stating the north end was in the direction of US 60, but without any details.

[49] (The new number came from the route it connected to across the Appomattox River in Powhatan County;[50] what had been SR 604 south of Amelia Court House[51] was renumbered 607, a designation freed the previous year by the extension of SR 148.)

It was added to the primary state highway system in 1938 as a 4.2 miles (6.8 km) route,[68] which would place the southern end at the modern city limits, where Commerce Road now ends.

Richmond annexed the road and surrounding land at the beginning of 1942, which would normally result in maintenance going to the city, but the state legislature allowed the state to complete ongoing construction.

[69] The route stopped appearing on state maps by 1944,[70][unreliable source?]

but in 1953 the city requested that the state four-lane the road (then known as Ninth Street Road), citing the 1942 law and the possibility of incorporating it into the proposed Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike[71] (which was instead built just to the east).

The part of former SR 336 north of Bellemeade Road was part of SR 416, a "primary extension" eligible for special funding from the state to the city, from 1981 to 1988.

In 1994 a short piece farther to the south became part of SR 161.