Virginia Street is one of the oldest streets in America and the busiest in Urbanna, with five original colonial buildings still standing. Homes on the street were associated with three of Urbanna's most famous residents: Dr. Arthur Lee, who with Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane negotiated the Treaty of Alliance in 1778 that brought France into the Revolutionary War; Dr. John Mitchell, known for drawing the Map of the British and French Dominion used at the Treaty of Paris at the end of the Revolutionary War; and Andrew Jackson Montague, who served as governor of Virginia from 1902 to 1906 and as a congressman from 1912 to 1937. Legend holds that William Clark left from the Gressitt House on Virginia Street to meet Captain Meriwether Lewis at the start of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. During the 20th century, the town's commercial hub shifted from Cross Street to Virginia Street. In 1911, the present Something Different building housed the L.L. Tignor Co. Department Store in the main room and Jones and Chowning Druggists in the side room; later, Green Front grocery occupied the main room and the Southside Sentinel weekly newspaper was printed next door. The Rappanna Theatre brought sound motion pictures to town in 1931, replacing the silent film theater upstairs in the Regal Building on Cross Street, and it later stood on the site of today's town parking lot until a snow storm caused its roof to collapse in 1996. At one time the town had four car dealerships, and its earliest cars arrived by steamboat from Baltimore at Burton's Steamboat Wharf on Watling Street before being motored to owners or dealerships. Atwell Taylor operated Taylor Motor Company in the building now occupied by Urbanna Harbor Gallery and Art Services, and the Urbanna 5 and 10 Cents store stood in the Virginia Street Cafe building. The ABC Store, built in the mid-1930s, drew trade from residents of surrounding dry counties, including patrons from the Tides Inn in Irvington on a regular Saturday passenger cruise called the whiskey run, while also provoking strong opposition from the local Baptist Temperence Society.