After the War of 1812, the removal of British trade restrictions helped Virginia shift from an agriculture-based society toward one centered on growing urban places and prospering river ports such as Alexandria, Fredericksburg, and Richmond, while western communities including Staunton and Lexington also expanded with new immigration from the North. This rapid growth increased the need for better transportation, and the state-funded Board of Public Works worked with private companies to build canals, turnpikes, railroads, and navigable rivers that gave farmers and merchants access to markets. Among the earliest of these routes were turnpikes based on England's toll pike system, in which private regional authorities borrowed money to build roads and tollhouses, with the roads becoming public after the debts were paid. Virginia's General Turnpike Law of 1817 set standards for road width and surface, toll rates, and the spacing of tollhouses, requiring them no less often than every five miles, though many stood at ten-mile intervals or at places difficult to bypass such as river crossings, country stores, or mountain gaps. In the Warm Springs area, five turnpikes served the region during the nineteenth and early twentieth century: the Jackson River Turnpike, the War Springs-Huntersville-Romney Turnpike, the Warm Springs to Bull Pasture Turnpike, the Warm Springs and Harrisonburg Turnpike, and the Warm Springs Mountain Turnpike, which closely followed modern-day Route 39. The nearby Jackson River Turnpike originally crossed the golf course of the Homestead resort in Hot Springs, and after the Hot Springs Company acquired its stock and assets, it continued collecting tolls until the road fell into a large deficit and was presented to the state in the early 1920s.