Due to popular demand a patch bearing the Official Blue Ridge Parkway 75th Anniversary logo has been created!
This official 75th Anniversary product is now available online at the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation Store and in visitor centers along the Parkway.
Don’t forget that proceeds from the sale of all 75th Anniversary products directly benefit the Blue Ridge Parkway and BRP 75th Anniversary programs.
Other Official 75th Anniversary products include:
» Browse all Official Blue Ridge Parkway 75th Anniversary merchandise
After 34 years with the National Park Service, Phil Francis was appointed Superintendent of the Blue Ridge Parkway in November 2005. In his many years of service Phil has worked in the Shenandoah, Yosemite, and Great Smoky Mountains national parks.
Throughout his tenure with the NPS Phil has received numerous awards and recognitions including winning the Department of Interior’s Meritorious Award, being listed in the Congressional Record in 2006, and having a new species to science named after him by the Discover Life in America organization in appreciation for his support of their projects. Read more »
L-R: Leesa Brandon, executive director of Blue Ridge Parkway 75 Inc; Anne Whisnant, author-historian and Foundation trustee; Parkway Superintendent Phil Francis; Senator Joe Sam Queen; Houck Medford, Foundation executive director.
A co-operative and non-partisan tour de force of North Carolina senators and representatives has resulted in recognition for the Blue Ridge Parkway’s 75th anniversary. Bill sponsors, Representatives Rapp, Tarleton, Haire, and Frye commended to the general house body on June 29 House Bill 1655, a resolution honoring the 75th anniversary of the Blue Ridge Parkway. All the primary house bill sponsors spoke eloquently on the floor in favor of the bill. It passed unanimously and was carried by special courier to the senate which was also meeting in evening session.
The bill was commended by Senators Queen and Goss. The resolution passed unanimously.
Attending from the National Park Service and Parkway partner groups were Reid Wilson, Conservation Trust for North Carolina; Anne Whisnant, the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation; Leesa Brandon, Blue Ridge Parkway 75th, Inc,; Houck Medford, Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation; and Superintendent Phil Francis.
The nonprofit organization planning the celebration of the Parkway’s 75th Anniversary in 2010 has released the call for proposals for Part I of our two-part 75th Anniversary Symposium, “Imagining the Blue Ridge Parkway for the 21st Century.”
Part I of the symposium, which will be held April 22-24, 2010 on the campus of Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, is designed to bring together researchers and professionals from all fields who have done new research about the Blue Ridge Parkway in the last 15 years or so. The title of the symposium is “History, Scenery, Conservation, and Community.”
The hope is to bring together everyone who has research findings to share, with the aim of laying a new foundation of knowledge that will undergird decision-making for the Parkway’s next 75 years. Read more »
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 »
