Blue Ridge Parkway: A Road Guide

By Rose Houk

In addition to the mile-by-mile guide to the highlights of the Parkway, author Rose Houk's evocative essays reveal the rich human and natural history of the entire region. Beginning with its initial conceptualization in 1906; its principal construction by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s; to its final completion in the 1980s, it is a story of American vision and dedication.

Ultimately extending 469 miles, from Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina to Virginia's Shenandoah National Park, the Parkway has 26 tunnels, nearly 170 bridges, 264 scenic pullouts, and embraces 9 major recreation areas.

This is the one indispensable guide whether visiting for a day, a weekend, or a month!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Park Partners, Inc
• Release date: Aug 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781580711227

Rose Houk

Freelance author Rose Houk specializes in natural history, history, archaeology, and travel writing. Over the past 25 years, she has written many interpretive publications for national parks and monuments around the country. She went to college near the southern Appalachian Mountains in Tennessee, and was a newspaper reporter in the mountains of Kentucky. Rose has also worked as a newsletter and book editor, public radio broadcaster, and a National Park Service ranger-naturalist.

Book preview

BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY

ROAD GUIDE

Sunrise along the southern Blue Ridge Parkway.

by

ROSE HOUK

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SIERRA PRESS

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Sierra Press

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Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To a person, National Park Service staff all along the Blue Ridge Parkway were courteous and helpful throughout research on this book. I thank them, and Karen Searle of Eastern National too, for reviews of the manuscript. Jeff Nicholas of Sierra Press has constantly gone the extra mile to make this a readable and visually exciting work, and Nicky Leach performed excellent editing services. Finally, I thank my husband, Michael Collier, who has always traveled with me.

R.H.

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION TO THE BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY

The Appalachian Mountains

Appalachian Mountain Culture

VISITING THE PARKWAY

Parkway Map

Building the Blue Ridge Parkway

NORTH ENTRANCE TO JAMES RIVER

Map 1: Milepost 0 to 65

Farm Life At Humpback Rocks

JAMES RIVER TO SMART VIEW

Map 2: Milepost 63 to 155

Foods Of The Blue Ridge

SMART VIEW TO CUMBERLAND KNOB

Map 3: Milepost 150 to 220

Music Of The Blue Ridge

CUMBERLAND KNOB TO JULIAN PRICE MEMORIAL PARK

Map 4: Milepost 215 to 300

JULIAN PRICE MEMORIAL PARK TO CRAGGY GARDENS

Map 5: Milepost 295 to 370

Azaleas And Rhododendrons

CRAGGY GARDENS TO SOUTH ENTRANCE

Map 6: Milepost 365 to 469

The Cradle Of Forestry

THE NATURAL WORLD

Threats To The Blue Ridge

Trail Of Tears: The Cherokee

FACILITIES ALONG THE PARKWAY

RESOURCES AND INFORMATION

SUGGESTED READING

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Observation Tower and split-rail fence, Groundhog Mountain.

BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY

An Introduction

I hiked up to Bluff Mountain on a drizzly day in October, through black locust and bittersweet, over slippery wet roots, and past a microcosmic universe of mosses carpeting gray boulders in vivid green. Up on top, I sprawled out on large flat rock and gazed down on the Blue Ridge Parkway winding through Doughton Park. I imagined the Parkway's visionary planners sitting at this very spot, surveying this same scene, and determining how the road would weave across the ridge here.

The Park-to-Park Highway, as the Parkway was first called, was conceived as an extension of Shenandoah National Park's Skyline Drive, connecting it with the new Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee. When heated debate ensued in 1933 and 1934 over the Parkway's final route, North Carolina Congressman Robert Farmer Bob Doughton, for whom this area is named, evoked the Creator in an impassioned plea to run the road through his state's magnificent mountains. Anyone who viewed this scenery, declared Doughton, will find that the Omnipotent Architect of the World has carved and chiseled the most outstanding display of nature known to all creation.

As I looked down from my eyrie, I couldn't argue. And I could hardly imagine the Parkway following any path other than the one it follows here across broad meadows and the sawtooth crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains. But for Congressman Doughton and other boosters of the North Carolina route (who were battling Tennessee's bid for the road), some heavy lobbying took place before the decision was made in their favor.

R. Getty Browning, North Carolina Highway Commission engineer, was one of the master promoters of the Parkway. A dedicated outdoorsman, Browning had walked the entire route he favored. He consistently and persuasively stated his belief that the crest of the mountains was the most scenic and least destructive course to take.

Sharing visionary honors was young Stanley Abbott. At age 26 he was appointed the first resident landscape architect of the Blue Ridge Parkway for the National Park Service. From the Westchester, New York, county parks, Abbott arrived in January 1934 to begin his new job—to design the Blue Ridge Parkway. In a truck, with the sketchiest of maps in hand, Abbott traveled, photographed, and described the terrain the Parkway would