Blue Ridge Parkway beginnings

 November 16th

ON THIS DAY in North Carolina history…

1933,

ON THIS DAY Senator Harry Byrd, US Senator from Virginia has gathered in his office the main players of a proposed new Federal project. It will come to be called the Blue Ridge Parkway, but for now, its name is uncertain, much less its eventual route. That will take another year, almost to the day, when Secretary of the Interior approves the roadways final course.

But that is later. For now, the men in Byrd’s office are here to evaluate the proposed Appalachian Scenic Highway...and each other. They include Regional Public Works Administrator George Radcliffe, National Park Service Director Arno B. Cammerer, Federal Bureau of Public Roads Chief Thomas H. “Chief” MacDonald, Theodore Straus, a Baltimore engineer, and Gilmore D. Clarke, consulting landscape architect and a pioneer in the nation's parkway-building efforts. Also present through their association with Clarke were National Park Service Chief Landscape Architect Thomas C. Vint, Bureau of Public Roads engineer H. J. Spelman, and newly hired Resident Landscape Architect Abbott. That listing makes for some dry reading, I know, but it will be these men who create what will become the Blue Ridge Parkway. They deserve to have their names remembered. However all, including Senator Byrd, will credit MacDonald as the heart and soul of the project.

Its initial conception is simply as the Eastern National Park Highway. It will join and connect the Shenandoah, The Great Smoky Mountains, and Mammoth Cave National Parks. It would follow established travel routes and would be a major trunk highway on which both recreational and commercial traffic would be permitted. This initial roadway is to be joint Federal/State project. Work on this proceeds at an agonizingly slow pace, probably because only Kentucky is really in favor of it. Despite Bluegrass protest, the Kentucky aspect is eventually dropped, as well as planning for commercial travel. Now it will be a solely recreationally roadway. And now it is just North Carolina and Tennessee, or to be more specific, Knoxville and Asheville.

A bitter rivalry develops between the two cities for the route of the new Parkway. Both states agree on the Virginia route south from the Skyline Drive, and the Tennessee and North Carolina proposals shared the same routing from the North Carolina-Virginia line past Grandfather Mountain to Linville, N.C. At this point, instead of continuing southwesterly, the Tennessee route would have turned nearly due west and crossed into Tennessee, passing grand Roan Mountain (elevation 6285 feet) — on either a high route on Roan's slopes or a lower route through the adjoining valley — on the way to Unicoi, Tennessee (just south of Johnson City). From there, the Tennessee route would have turned southwest and crept near the North Carolina/Tennessee state line (within what is now the Cherokee National Forest) through the Nolichucky River gorge, across Cold Springs Mountain, through the French Broad River gorge to Delrio and Hartford, and then on to the Smokies, possibly via a fork around the park that would have taken visitors either to Gatlinburg or to Cherokee. The Tennessee route offered "a variety of mountains, mountain stream valley, and broad river types of scenery," including some high rock cliffs, meadowlands, and woods--all in all a "wide variety of interest." Its disadvantage was its "relatively low elevation."

The two states present their proposals to Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes. From the beginning, it is obvious the Tar Heels are ready, and the Tennesseans are not. The Tennessee proposal is presented by Tennessee Senator Kenneth McKellar. McKellar pressed his state's case with accusations of bias and favoritism within the federal committee, and threats to use his influence in Congress to withhold funding for the road were it not located to his liking. It is a disaster. Other Tennessee speakers try to pick up the pieces, but, compared with the facts, fervor, and polish of North Carolina's presentation, the Tennesseans' case seemed vague, disorganized, whiny, and weak.

In November of 1934, Ickes will make his decision. Officially he states that North Carolina already has the National Forests that will serve as the route, and that Tennessee had already benefited from the ongoing Tennessee River Valley Dam Project. Unofficially he is put out with Senator McKellar veiled threats and sloppy presentation. The new roadway will go through North Carolina, and Tennessee is excluded altogether.

Pictured:

- The Blue Ridge Parkway post card

- The North Carolina and Tennessee proposed routes for the Blue Ridge Parkway. The proposed Tennessee route is in yellow at the top of the map.

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North Carolina Expatriates