hen I was a child, my family had a yearly tradition that involved touring the Luray Caverns, driving Skyline Drive, and then stopping on the way home at an apple orchard to pick a few bushels of apples. I loved those times. The caverns were impressive, the apples were delicious and fun to pick, and the incredible display of color in the leaves along Skyline Drive was intense and awe-inspiring.
Little did I know back in those days that we would one day live in Front Royal, just about two miles from the entrance to Skyline Drive. So this past Saturday we took advantage of our proximity and decided to drive a little ways along Skyline Drive to get some pictures—even though it is now heading into winter and the leaves are almost all gone.
It was gorgeous—as I imagine it is any time of the year.
When we got back home, Kim flipped through some of our Virginia Living magazines and found an article about Skyline Drive. I wanted to share it with you.
75 Years Ago
Skyline Drive
It was a one-two knockout punch: First, the Great Depression hit in 1929, then 1930 began the worst drought in Virginia history.
The combined crisis left Appalachian-area apple pickers desperate for jobs, and in January of 1931 the federal government sent help from the Federal Drought Relief Appropriation. The money was to employ laborers and contractors in a large construction project. It would keep them busy for the next six years and literally put Virginia on the map.
The idea had been first floated seven years earlier, in a report from the Southern Appalachian National Park Commission. The group recommended establishing a national park in the Shenandoah area, but the report also included an ambitious footnote:
“The greatest single feature, however, is a possible skyline drive along the mountain top, following a continuous ridge and looking westerly on the Shenandoah Valley, from 2,500 to 3,500 feet below, and also commanding a view of the Piedmont Plain stretching easterly to the Washington Monument, which landmark may be seen on a clear day.... Few scenic drives in the world could surpass it.”
Herbert Hoover was all for it; he loved the Blue Ridge enough to have established a permanent Presidential trout fishing camp on the Rapidan river. Federal money was secured, but the land still had to be acquired.
Most of it was farmland. Federal law forbade the government from seizing property, so the job fell to the Commonwealth of Virginia. Although some acreage was donated, most was acquired through condemning it, then negotiating a reasonable purchase price with the farmer and giving the land to the Federal Government.
There were far more squatters than landowners living in the path of the Drive, and in evicting them the Federal Government tried to avoid sparking another messy protest movement as had recently happned in the Great Smoky Mountains. Over 500 families were displaced in Virginia. All were offered resettlement assistance, including Federal programs for purchasing land in three new homestead areas on each side of the Blue Ridge.
As the work progressed, North Carolina also realized the economic value such a project would create. State legislators proposed extending the Skyline Drive to connect the Shenandoah and Smoky Mountain national parks. A plan modeled on the Virginia project was approved, and work began on the Blue Ridge Parkway in 1935.
The Virginia project went quickly, considering all of the blasting, grading, paving, landscaping, rail-building, and the digging and lining of the 670-foot-long Mary’s Rock tunnel.
The first section of the drive was opened in 1934, with the entire 105-mile road finished and paved by the fall of 1939. Over 4,000 workers and 13 contracting companies (four from Virginia) made it happen, at a total cost of just over $1.6 million government dollars.
Today, the Skyline Drive remains one of the most traveled recreational roads in the nation—about 2 million people drive it each year. It stretches from Front Royal to Rockfish Gap, with a 35-mph speed limit the entire way, offering the same magnificent views and peaceful foray into Appalachian Virginia as it did 75 years ago.
I really love your photos, Richard. We have to drive quite some distance to begin to see anything close to this.
ReplyDeleteToo, the blog header you had up a few days ago with the water fountain was especially pretty. Thank you for putting these up.
Thanks, Trish. That water fountain was from the Sequoia Restaurant in Washington, DC. I did the annual Washington, Maryland, Virginia Technology FAST 50 event there (photographed it) for five years. It's a beautiful place along the Potomac river, right next to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. And directly across the river from my office building.
ReplyDeleteIf you ever come out towards DC, give us a holler. We'd love to have you visit us - maybe even stay with us if you don't mind. And we could show you some of the sights.
I love the pictures, and remember those great family days. Do you recall when a bear drank our Kool-aid as we camped there?
ReplyDeleteI do remember that, Mom. I had forgotten that it was at one of the Skyline Drive campgrounds, but now that I think of it, I do remember. We're hoping to go camping there when the weather gets a bit warmer. David loves Skyline Drive and he loves camping, so I think it would be a great family outing.
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