Established in the 18th century in the Virginia Colony, the Warwick Road effectively provided a portage around the portion of the James River containing dams and rapids near the fall line in the area of the towns of Manchester and Richmond, Virginia, which were located along the south and north banks of the river respectively.
Established around 1750 by Archibald Cary, Warwick was destroyed in 1781 by British General Benedict Arnold's troops during the American Revolutionary War.
There, it intersected what was called the River Road, which ran closely along the south bank in a westerly direction.
During second half of the 20th century, portions of Warwick Road east of Chippenham Parkway became hazardous as the area became heavily developed with housing subdivisions and suburban growth, and the traffic volume increased greatly on the two-laned curving roadway, which had no shoulders and deep ditches along the narrow right-of-way which had been established many years before the invention of the automobile.
In the 1990s, a newer 4.5-mile-long four-lane connector route was built in the annexed area of the City of Richmond at a cost of $41 million US with funding from the Virginia Department of Transportation.