(Originally posted to Virtual Blue Ridge’s Blue Ridge Parkway Blog, September 28, 2008) 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…
(Originally posted to VIrtual Blue Ridge’s Blue Ridge Parkway Blog, September 17, 2008) 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…
(Originally posted to Virtual Blue Ridge’s Blue Ridge Parkway Blog, August 14, 2008) Sorry I have been offline for a while — I was traveling to the midwest, where I visited Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, Mammoth Cave National Park, and the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace. But now back to the Blue Ridge Parkway! In some recent posts,…
(Originally posted on Virtual Blue Ridge’s Blue Ridge Parkway Blog, July 25, 2008) I subscribe to a Google groups listserv called Park Land Watch that sends me multiple articles every day about all kinds of issues facing the National Parks. The topics raised on the list remind me that our beloved Blue Ridge Parkway is part…
(Originally posted to Virtual Blue Ridge’s Blue Ridge Parkway Blog, July 16, 2008) In some recent posts, I’ve been trying to give a historically-informed analysis of the “preliminary alternatives” recently announced for the public’s consideration and commentary to help the Parkway staff writes a General Management Plan for the park. Today’s topic? The comments…
(Originally posted to Virtual Blue Ridge’s Blue Ridge Parkway Blog, July 9, 2008) I have just returned from Boone, NC, where I spent parts of two days with a group of K-12 educators who are spending a week at Appalachian State University studying the Parkway and its history. They are there for the first…
(Originally posted on Virtual Blue Ridge’s Blue Ridge Parkway Blog, July 2, 2008) In this and the next several posts, I’m trying to give a historically-informed analysis of the “preliminary alternatives” recently announced for the public’s consideration and commentary to help the Parkway staff writes a General Management Plan for the park. Today’s topic?…
(Originally posted to Virtual Blue Ridge’s Blue Ridge Parkway Blog, June 25, 2008) For several years now, the staff at the Blue Ridge Parkway has been working on writing a General Management Plan. Before you start yawning, let me explain a bit: what is a General Management Plan, and why should we care? Partly…
(Originally posted to Virtual Blue Ridge’s Blue Ridge Parkway Blog, June 11, 2008) When local people dubbed it “The Scenic” in the 1930s, they recognized what all of us realize – that the Parkway is an intensely visual experience. “See” is the first syllable in “scenic.” But the sources from which a historian works…
(Originally posted on Virtual Blue Ridge’s Blue Ridge Parkway Blog, June 4, 2008) The January 3, 1979 Asheville Citizen-Times story was brief and sterile: Four or five gunshot wounds were in Catherine D. Bauer when her dead body was found Monday afternoon in a wooded part of the Cherokee Indian Reservation, the Jackson County…