History of the Development of the Shenandoah National Park (1901-36)

K.W. Stanley / News Virginian
Published: February 26, 2008

Through executive orders and legislation, FDR abandoned the gold standard, insured bank deposits, subsidized declining farm and factory prices, assisted defaulting homeowners, regulated the stock market, and initiated public works projects. Thirty of FDR's "Alphabet Agencies" responsible for these goals were legislated between 1933 and 1937. One public works project which helped to develop the Shenandoah National Park (SNP) was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which operated between May 1933 and July 1942.

Several earlier developments also led to the creation of the SNP between Front Royal and Waynesboro. Meetings occurred between Virginia and Tennessee Congressmen in 1901, including Harry D. Flood (uncle of Harry F. Byrd Sr.), to establish a park west of Washington, but despite a bill being drafted nothing occurred. By February 1924, Hubert Work, interior secretary in Calvin Coolidge's administration, requested Congress to authorize an Appalachian National Park Study Committee, which was approved.

By February 1924, Harrisonburg businessmen organized a Regional Chamber of Commerce of 13 Valley counties to publicize the Shenandoah Valley. The Directors proposed a national park west of the present SNP site. By September 1924, George Freeman Pollock, founder of Skyland (a 19th century resort), formed Shenandoah Valley Inc. to promote Skyland as the park site. A proposal was sent to the Interior Secretary in December 1924, which included a Skyline Drive. By February 1925, Congress allocated $20,000 for a study of proposed parks in North Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia.

The report recommended the SNP be established with Virginia purchasing the land and donating it to the federal government. In 1925, the SNP Association Inc. organized in Charlottesville to raise $2.5 million to purchase park land. By 1926, $1.25 million was pledged. In May 1926, Congress approved the SNP, with a requirement the park would be established when Virginia donated 327,000 acres.

Governor Harry F. Byrd established a Virginia Conservation Department, headed by William Carson, to survey and purchase 4,000 properties. The Virginia General Assembly in 1927 enacted a condemnation law to acquire titles to all land in the park. This law survived a Virginia Supreme Court challenge and Harold Ickes, interior secretary, accepted these cleared titles in 1935.

Between 1931 and 1935, the SNP was confined to a 100-foot Skyline Drive right-of-way and 6,000 acres at Skyland, White Oak Canyon and Big Meadows. President Hoover allocated public works funds to construct 32 miles of the Skyline Drive between Camp Rapidan (his summer White House), Big Meadows, Skyland and Thornton Gap. After FDR became president in 1933, the SNP developed with the work of men in CCC camps.

In February 1934, Arno Cammerer, SNP director, ordered, "All inhabitants of the park lands whether landowners, tenants, or squatters, will have to leave." The Baltimore Sun reported the forced evictions of these mountaineer families.

The Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) purchased 6291 acres in seven locations bordering the SNP as resettlement communities. The SNP was dedicated by FDR in July 1936.

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