Parkway History

There is no charge to travel the Blue Ridge Parkway, which winds along mountain crests from the terminus of Skyline Drive at Afton Mountain to the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina. The goal of the Blue Ridge Parkway is to preserve and interpret the natural and cultural history of the southern Appalachian Mountains. For this purpose, hiking trails, camp grounds, picnic areas, visitor centers, restaurants, lodges and scenic overlooks dot the length of the parkway.

Just as on the Blue Ridge Parkway, the views along Skyline Drive can be spectacular, and the drive provides access to the 195,000-acre Shenandoah National Park. This park draws almost two million visitors annually and offers hiking trails, swimming, camping, lodges, restaurants and historic sites. There are more than 520 miles of trails within the park boundaries and hundreds of species of wildlife. Two hundred and five varieties of birds alone have been sighted within the park. There are also ranger hikes and activities offered year-round.

The Blue Ridge Parkway is 469 miles long. It was conceived during the Great Depression -though the idea had some germination earlier - as a scenic tourist link between the two National Parks, previously mentioned. It was implemented out of a need to put people to work in 1935 during the Depression and the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) provided the labor.

The route through Virginia was fairly easily established, but a rather bitter rivalry developed between North Carolina and Tennessee for the rest of the route, as both states recognized the economic benefits that would arise in the near and far term. The man responsible for finally determining the route was Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, who chose a North Carolina route because there were already two National Forests (Pisgah and Nantahala) in NC that could be used as a corridor for the Parkway, because North Carolina was regarded as more scenic and because Tennessee had already benefited from New Deal projects like the TVA.

Now, if you were to think about planning a road today, you would probably call an engineer first. That's not what happened with the Parkway - they called a Landscape Architect. There were actually quite a few architects and engineers involved, but the lead architect for most of the project was the young Stanley Abbott, a Cornell University graduate. Abbott was influenced by the likes of Frederick Law Olmstead, designer of Central Park in New York and the surroundings of the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC. He wanted to create a park-like environment that would blend in with the natural surroundings and showcase not only panoramic views of the mountains, but also agricultural settings, streams and forests, and as it turned out, local folkways.

Planning and landscape design for the Parkway began Dec. 26, 1933 and construction began in Sept. 1935. The Civilian Conservation Corp began work on several sections of the Parkway simultaneously, with sections being given priority where employment needs were greatest. Contractors were mandated to hire local people whenever possible. Four CCC camps were established at various points along the route to perform the work. The CCC camps were managed in military style with workers being housed in barracks, marched in formation and taking turns with kitchen duties. Almost all of the work on the Parkway, including the rigorous chore of tunnel digging, was done by hand and with very little machinery.

Work continued steadily until the start of WW II by which time approximately 2/3 of the Parkway was complete. In 1942, the CCC was closed out and work on the remaining sections of the Parkway was sporadic. The work was not completely finished until 1987 when the Linn Cove Viaduct was completed.

Construction of hard structures along the route did utilize modern materials like concrete for bridges, tunnels, dams, and various buildings. Stonemasons later finished the work with facings of local stone to blend the structures into their surroundings and give the illusion that the work was done in a more primitive fashion. The Linn Cove Viaduct section of the Parkway has been called the "most complicated segmental bridge ever built". The Viaduct was designed by computer and probably could not have been done earlier in the project as it required technology to be developed for its' design. It is an elaborate double-S curve elevated bridge that skirts the side of Grandfather Mountain at mp 304. The purpose of elevating the roadway rather than blasting it into the side of the mountain was to limit the impact on ecologically sensitive Grandfather Mountain, which is designated by UNESCO as an International Biosphere Reserve.

Make no mistake about it - the Blue Ridge Parkway is a masterpiece of design. While the Parkway today lives up to the ideal of providing a pastoral route through an apparently pristine environment, it is actually more of a museum piece showcasing a simpler time that never really existed in quite that way. Very little of the route was actually pristine nature. When construction began, much of the landscape had been devastated by clear-cut logging operations, streams were fouled and commercialization was already taking over the few scenic areas. Most of the original pioneer cabins in the area had crumbled into decay or been replaced by more modern structures, so in several cases cabins from other locations were moved to the Parkway. Some of the farms along the Parkway were encouraged to remain and work with the Park Service to preserve the proper atmosphere by, for instance, maintaining traditional split rail fencing and keeping heavy farm equipment out of sight. It is still a work in progress. Today supporters of the Parkway fight to limit development along the route to preserve vistas as well as being conscious of environmental issues like smog and acid rain that affect the health of the ecosystems.

Courtesy of Tim Treadwell - NCNatural.com