Super-Scenic Motorway: A Blue Ridge Parkway History

Key Dates in Early Blue Ridge Parkway History

August 1933: FDR visits CCC camps in the Shenandoah National Park with Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes and Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd. Someone suggests extending the new Skyline Drive southward to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (Click the link for video of FDR in Shenandoah.)
28 September 1933: “Byrd Outlines Park Road Plan.” First mention of the future Blue Ridge Parkway project in the Asheville Citizen.
17 October 1933: Representatives from Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia meet in the office of Senator Harry Byrd to discuss the proposed parkway to connect Shenandoah NP with Great Smoky Mountains NP. Click here to read the minutes of that meeting.
16 November 1933: Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes approves the future Blue Ridge Parkway for federal funding under the Public Works Administration.
5-7 February 1934: First hearings held in Washington to consider Parkway route.
13 June 1934: “Radcliffe Committee” appointed by Secretary Ickes to decide Parkway route recommends selection of the Tennesse-favored route (the Virginia-North Carolina-Tennessee route) instead of the Virginia-North Carolina route favored by North Carolinians.
19 July 1934: Secretary Ickes approves portions of the Parkway route from Shenandoah NP to the James River and from Adney Gap to Blowing Rock; announces he has postponed making a decision on the portion south of Blowing Rock.
18 September 1934: Secretary Ickes holds hearing in Washington to consider merits of the Tennessee- and North Carolina-favored routes for the Parkway from Blowing Rock to the Great Smoky Mountains.
10 November 1934: Secretary Ickes announces selection of the North Carolina-favored route for the Parkway.
11 September 1935: Project 2-A start date, according to a card file maintained at the Blue Ridge Parkway archives. Men employed by the Nello Teer company begin moving equipment from the train station at Galax, VA to Low Gap, NC in anticipation of the start of Parkway construction. Read about this in the Alleghany Times, 12 September 1935.

16 September 1935: 100 men continue to move machinery and begin clearing the right-of-way at Low Gap, NC. Read about this in the Mt. Airy News, 19 September 1935.
19 September 1935: According to a letter two days later from J.P. Dodge, Senior Claim Adjuster for the North Carolina Highway Commission to the Chair of the Highway Commission, the “first breaking of ground on the first project of the Shenandoah- Great Smoky Mountains National Parkway” took place this day at Low Gap, NC.
30 June 1936: Federal statute (16USC Sec. 460a-2.) names parkway the “Blue Ridge Parkway” and places it under control of the National Park Service.