The development of the Blue Ridge Parkway from Afton to the Smokey Mountains

K.W. Stanley / "History in the Valley"
Published: April 15, 2008

Settlement of the southern Appalachia began a decade before the American Revolution. Early settlers traveled down the “Great Wagon Road” from Philadelphia to the Carolina Piedmont and through mountain gaps into Virginia, North Carolina and other states.
City progressives by 1900 promoted development of national parks to protect Blue Ridge land they coveted with little thought given to mountaineer families who occupied the land. Progressives portrayed Blue Ridge mountaineers as uncivilized and backward.
As early as 1906, Joseph Hyde Pratt, a North Carolina geologist, envisioned a road along the Blue Ridge from Virginia to the Great Smoky mountains. Funds for the parkway surfaced after the National Industrial Recovery Act was enacted in 1933 and the public works administration was formed. Engineers and surveyors laid out the 469-mile route.
Construction commenced at the Virginia-North Carolina border near Cumberland Knob in 1935 and on the Virginia section by 1936. The 9.4-mile section between Humpback Rocks and Love required 35,000 drills and blasting 100,000 cubic feet of rock. The work was completed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and private contractors.
North Carolina and Tennessee purchased land for the Great Smokey Mountains National Park in the 1930s, with the help of John D. Rockefeller, who contributed $5 million. Mountain farms were condemned and thousands of families were relocated. The park, donated to the federal government, was dedicated by Franklin Roosevelt in 1940.
In 1938 William Wirt, a mountain farmer, wrote “We are being driven from our homes. The government has increased our poverty and is seeking to destroy our way of life.”
Blue Ridge Parkway construction was halted during World War II but resumed after the war. The parkway, almost complete by 1969 except for a section around Grandfather Mountain, was completed in 1987 from Afton Gap to Gatlinburg, Tenn., and Cherokee, N.C. The 469-mile parkway, completed at a cost of $124 million, includes 170 bridges, 9 recreational areas, 264 scenic overlooks, and 26 tunnels.
The Blue Ridge Parkway south of Afton Gap was developed differently than the Shenandoah National Park (SNP) between Front Royal and Waynesboro. Within the SNP, all mountaineers residing within the park area by the 1930s were evaculated and their cabins and outbuildings were razed. The mountain culture, which once existed there, was ignored. Park officials who developed the Blue Ridge Parkway decided this mistake of cultural eradication would not be repeated on the parkway from Afton Gap to the Great Smokey Mountains. Efforts were made to preserve evidence of mountaineer’s existence and culture such as cabins, grist mills, log churches, chestnut fences and other artifacts.
Areas where locals continue to celebrate their Scotts-Irish and Blue Ridge heritage include Galax, Hillsville and Mount Airy, near the Blue Ridge Parkway, which are recognized as the heartland of traditional Blue Ridge music. Luthiers make fiddles, banjos, dulcimers and mandolins. Locals clog and flat foot when dancing. Mountain music is heard on the parkway each fall above the town of Floyd (milepost 175) near Mabry Mill. The Blue Ridge Music Center in North Carolina is located at milepost 212.
K.W. Stanley is a Waynesboro resident, historian and TNV correspondent. Contact him at .