Hospital. South of SR 704 (Boyer Road), SR 253 drops to two lanes and the surroundings transition from suburban to rural. The highway intersects SR 276 (Cross Keys Road) a short distance northeast of the village of Cross Keys and crosses Mill Creek east of the village. SR 253 curves southwest and crosses the North River into the village of Port Republic, then curves back southeast and exits the village by crossing the South River just west of the confluence of the two rivers to form the South Fork Shenandoah River. SR 253 has an intersection with the northern end of SR 825 (South River Road) and a level crossing of Norfolk Southern Railway's Roanoke District before reaching its eastern terminus at US 340 (East Side Highway); Port Republic Road continues as SR 659. History The first portion of Port Republic Road to become a part of the state highway system was from Main Street (now SR 605) in Port Republic north to Pineville Road (now SR 672). That highway, SR 809, ran from Greenville through Waynesboro and Grottoes to SR 17 (now US 33) at Montevideo between Harrisonburg and Elkton by 1928. In 1930, the state highway was relocated to the east side of the South River from Grottoes to Port Republic along South River Road (now SR 825). SR 809 was not paved along Port Republic Road until 1932. As of 1932, the remainder of Port Republic Road followed highways maintained by the city of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. These included county route (CR) 31 from Harrisonburg through the junction with CR 12 (now SR 276) near Cross Keys to Goods Mill Road (now SR 708), on which CR 31 continued. Port Republic Road continued along CR 214 to Battlefield Road (then CR 7, now SR 679). The road continued along CR 7 to the junction with SR 809. CR 31 was paved from Harrisonburg to about the modern city limits of Harrisonburg, and CR 7 was paved from SR 809 to the Battlefield Road split. By July 1933, after the passage of the Byrd Road Act that established Virginia's secondary highway system and transferred maintenance responsibility for local highways from the county to the state, all of Port Republic Road's route numbers changed. SR 807 became part of SR 340, which became SR 12 in 1936. After the East Side Highway, the modern route of US 340,