Blue Ridge Parkway Journeys

I apologize for the long delay in offering any new postings for “A Historian’s Parkway.” Readers will have to have patience with my infrequent contributions for a while. To be honest, I have taken on too many obligations and am struggling to keep up. So I’ll be here now and then, but not as often as in the past. Meanwhile, other members of our community are doing their part to keep the conversation going!

Today I’d like to offer a few quick thoughts on a wonderful book I’ve just read about the history of three National Parks in the state of Washington: Mt. Rainier, Olympic, and North Cascades. David Louter’s 2007 Windshield Wilderness: Cars, Roads, and Nautre in Washington’s National Parks (Univ. of Washington Press, which I’ve recently reviewed the NPS publication CRM: Cultural Resources Management) sheds some new and interesting light on the Blue Ridge Parkway’s history and future.

Louter, a historian with the National Park Service’s Pacific West Region, looks at the evolution of each of these three parks, formed at different moments in the twentieth century, with an eye to how the parks accommodated roads and automobiles. Read more »

I was pleased to be involved in the kickoff a couple of weeks ago for the celebration of the Blue Ridge Parkway’s 75th Anniversary. While the official celebration won’t really happen until 2010, the two-state group working on the plans wanted to take note of the fact that the Parkway had its real beginnings 75 years ago this fall, when the project received initial approval for federal funding under the Public Works Administration.

I’ve written an article about the 75th kickoff event which I’ve posted over at National Parks Traveler, in hopes of bringing some national attention to our celebration. Meanwhile, for regular readers of this blog: if you pop over to National Parks Traveler, you’ll find a wealth of excellent information about all of our National Parks.

(The following piece was written with my husband, David E. Whisnant, and was first published on October 12, 2008 in the Raleigh News & Observer.)

Recent reports have brought welcome news that the state of North Carolina will purchase about 2600 acres of the spectacular Grandfather Mountain for protection as a public park. It’s about time.

The first effort to make Grandfather a park came in 1917 when owner Hugh MacRae tried to give 1400 acres at the top to the new National Park Service. NPS director Steve Mather rejected the donation, judging the acreage insufficient to protect the park from adjacent development by MacRae’s Linville Improvement Company. Read more »

The Charlotte Observer carries word this morning that the state of North Carolina will purchase approximately 2600 acres of Grandfather Mountain for $12 million for use as a state park. The purchase area, interestingly, does not include the 600-acre tract where the Mile-High Swinging Bridge, nature museum, and animal habitats have since the 1950s and 1960s attracted hundreds of thousands of paying tourists. These lands, instead, will be put under a conservation easement that will be managed by a new nonprofit headed by Crae Morton, grandson of Grandfather Mountain scion Hugh Morton.

In the coming days, I will comment on the historical roots of this purchase and the questions the history raises. But for now it is interesting to note that news of this purchase comes almost 60 years to the day after Hugh Morton informed a state commission that was trying to buy Grandfather that the mountain was not for sale “at any price.” The 1940s arrangement, had it gone through, would have put the state in control of more than twice the acreage (5500 acres). The suggested sale price at that time was $180,000. Read more »

I have been terribly remiss at adding anything to this blog recently and apologize for that. There is so much going on with my Blue Ridge Parkway work that I have had no time to blog! I hope to get back to more regular posts soon, but wanted to update you on some of what is afoot:

Blue Ridge Parkway 75th Anniversary: Plans for a year 2010 celebration of the 75th anniversary of the beginning of construction are proceeding quickly. A set of kickoff events happening in Roanoke on October 9th and 10th will begin with a symposium I have arranged that will look at how an understanding of the past helps us think about the Parkway’s future. “A Living Past on a Borrowed Landscape: The Blue Ridge Parkway at 75” will inagurate a conversation about the challenges facing the Parkway. We’ll also hope to identify areas where more research about the Parkway is needed; we hope that some of that research will be presented at a larger symposium or conference in 2010. The October 9th discussion is open to the public, and I hope that many of you will plan to attend. Full details about this event and all of the other Parkway 75th kickoff plans are available here. Read more »