Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson
Speaker 2: and I'm Holly Frye. It's time for the episode on
Speaker 2: the Blue Ridge Parkway that was inspired by my recent
Speaker 2: trip to Asheville and a historical display that I saw
Speaker 2: outside the Folk Art Center at mile marker three eighty two.
Speaker 2: When I saw that display, I thought, Hey, maybe we
Speaker 2: should do an episode on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and
Speaker 2: then some very cursory research turned that into it should
Speaker 2: have an introduction on Skyline Drive and then the rest
Speaker 2: of the episode will be on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Speaker 2: And then during the note taking, Skyline Drive grew into
Speaker 2: its whole episode by itself, which came out on Monday.
Speaker 2: I think we said last time, this isn't really a
Speaker 2: two parter. There are some connections between the Blue Ridge
Speaker 2: Parkway and Skyline Drive, including that they are physically connected
Speaker 2: at Rockfish Gap in Virginia. The Blue Ridge Parkway is
Speaker 2: four hundred and sixty nine miles long, making it the
Speaker 2: longest linear park in the United States and the longest
Speaker 2: roadway that was planned as a single unit. Like Skyline Drive,
Speaker 2: its creation was deeply connected to the federal government's efforts
Speaker 2: to provide relief from the Great Depression and to conserve
Speaker 2: the landscape and the views of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Speaker 1: The Blue Ridge Parkway was planned as a road that
Speaker 1: would stretch from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to Great
Speaker 1: Smoky Mountains National Park on the border of North Carolina
Speaker 1: and Tennessee, as we talked about on Monday. The Southern
Speaker 1: Appalachian National Park Committee recommended the creation of both of
Speaker 1: these parks in nineteen twenty four, and President Calvin Coolidge
Speaker 1: signed their creation into law on May twenty second, nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty six. But there was actually a similar road planned
Speaker 1: through the Blue Ridge Mountains before that, a scenic toll
Speaker 1: road that would run from Marion, Virginia to Tallula, Georgia.
Speaker 2: This was proposed in nineteen oh six by North Carolina
Speaker 2: state geologist Joseph Hyde Pratt, who was also a member
Speaker 2: of the Commission of the Appalachian Forestry Reserve. Pratt secured
Speaker 2: a charter for a company to build the road, and
Speaker 2: construction on the first stretch of it started in nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 2: but then World War One officially started in June of
Speaker 2: that year, and that put an end to that construction.
Speaker 2: The construction did not restart once the war was over.
Speaker 2: A very short stretch of today's Blue Ridge Parkway follows
Speaker 2: Pratt's proposed route. It is just a couple of miles
Speaker 2: in North Carolina, a little bit south of Linville Falls.
Speaker 1: Discussions of a highway through the Blue Ridge Mountains resumed
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty eight, two years after Congress authorized the
Speaker 1: establishment of Shenandoah, Great Smoky Mountains and Mammoth Cave National
Speaker 1: Park Parks, the Eastern National Park to Park Highway Association,
Speaker 1: led by Representative Maurice H. Thatcher of Kentucky, started advocating
Speaker 1: for a highway that would link all of those parks together.
Speaker 2: So this was inspired not just by the creation of
Speaker 2: those parks, but also by the National Park to Park Highway,
Speaker 2: which connected twelve national parks in the Western United States,
Speaker 2: including Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Mount Rainier.
Speaker 1: The National Park to Park Highway.
Speaker 2: Was a loop more than five thousand miles long that
Speaker 2: traveled through eleven states. It had been built to help
Speaker 2: promote travel to the parks, and also out of necessity.
Speaker 2: The federal government had established a collection of national parks,
Speaker 2: and they were really known for their uniqueness and their beauty,
Speaker 2: but there also just wasn't much infrastructure that would allow
Speaker 2: people to actually visit them, or much in the way
Speaker 2: of maps for the roads that did exist. This became
Speaker 2: a bigger need as cars became more popular, more affordable,
Speaker 2: and more available. That point, sort of, the popularity of
Speaker 2: cars had outpaced the establishment of improved roads to handle them.
Speaker 2: While the National Park to Park Highway existed, it was
Speaker 2: pretty rugged. Most of it was not even paved. One
Speaker 2: group of people departed Denver, Colorado, on August twenty sixth,
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty, the day after the highway was dedicated, to
Speaker 2: travel the whole route, and they stopped for lunches, dinners,
Speaker 2: and speaking engagements, and then they spent the night somewhere
Speaker 2: every night and this little road trip took them seventy
Speaker 2: six days. So the idea of an Eastern National Park
Speaker 2: to Park Highway got some support, including from the National
Speaker 2: Park Service and the Bureau of Public Roads, which later
Speaker 2: became the Federal Highway Administration. The idea for the Eastern
Speaker 2: Highway was that it would build on established roads and highways.
Speaker 2: It would improve ones that already existed and create new
Speaker 2: ones where they did not exist. This proposed park to
Speaker 2: Park Highway would travel through beautiful parts of the country,
Speaker 2: but it was also meant to be a regular highway
Speaker 2: open for recreation and for commercial traffic.
Speaker 1: The Great Depression started just a year after the Eastern
Speaker 1: National Park to Park Highway Association started advocating for this,
Speaker 1: which meant very little progress was made on actually building it,
Speaker 1: and then things went in a different direction. In nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty three, President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Civilian Conservation Core
Speaker 1: Camps in Shenandoah National Park so as a recap. The
Speaker 1: CCC was a work relief program that was part of
Speaker 1: Roosevelt's New Deal, and it was generally focused on projects
Speaker 1: related to natural resources. During that visit, Senator Harry Bird
Speaker 1: of Virginia suggested that a new road could be built
Speaker 1: through the Blue Ridge Mountains, similar to Skyline Drive that
Speaker 1: was in the process of being built through Shenandoah National Park,
Speaker 1: and that road would connect Shenandoah to Great Smoky Mountains
Speaker 1: National Park.
Speaker 2: This would be a little bit different from the proposed
Speaker 2: Eastern National Park to Park Highway. Bird did not pitch
Speaker 2: the idea of connecting all three of the parks, just
Speaker 2: Shenandoah and the Smokies, although there were some various proposals
Speaker 2: to extend the southern end of this scenic road into Georgia,
Speaker 2: and it also would not be a regular highway.
Speaker 1: It would be a.
Speaker 2: Limited access road with no commercial traffic. In June of
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty three, Congress passed the National Industrial Recovery Act,
Speaker 2: which was another part of the New Deal.
Speaker 1: This act did a lot. It suspended various antitrust laws
Speaker 1: and instead encouraged businesses to collaborate with one another and
Speaker 1: to create codes of fair competition that would establish industry
Speaker 1: wides standards for things like wages, prices, and consumer protections.
Speaker 1: It also protected workers' rights to form unions and collectively bargain.
Speaker 1: Title iiO of the Act was focused on public works
Speaker 1: and construction projects, and it's set in part quote not
Speaker 1: less than fifty million dollars of the amount made available
Speaker 1: by this Act shall be allotted for a National Forest
Speaker 1: Highways B National forest roads, trails, bridges, and related projects.
Speaker 1: C National park roads and trails in national parks approved
Speaker 1: or authorized. That fifty million dollars was part of a
Speaker 1: three point three billion dollar federal public Works program. On
Speaker 1: November twenty fourth, nineteen thirty three, Secretary of the Interior
Speaker 1: Herald Ikis, approved the construction of a parkway connecting Shenandoah
Speaker 1: and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks as a public works project.
Speaker 1: The following month, four million dollars was allotted for the construction.
Speaker 1: The Federal Highway Act of nineteen thirty four also included
Speaker 1: language about increasing employment by allocating money for road construction,
Speaker 1: including quote survey, construction, reconstruction, and maintenance of highways, roads, trails, bridges,
Speaker 1: and related projects in national parks and monuments and national forests.
Speaker 1: The next step was to plan a route. The easier
Speaker 1: part was the northern end in Virginia since the road
Speaker 1: was supposed to connect to Skyline Drive in Shenandoa National Park,
Speaker 1: but since Great Smoky Mountains National Park is on the
Speaker 1: border between North Carolina and Tennessee, the southern end of
Speaker 1: the road could approach it through either of those states.
Speaker 1: Although there were plenty of critics of this project, overall,
Speaker 1: both states were extremely eager to be home to the
Speaker 1: southern end of the parkway, since the construction would bring
Speaker 1: jobs to the area and the finished parkway would be
Speaker 1: a source of tourism dollars. This region had been economically
Speaker 1: depressed even before the star of the Great Depression, and
Speaker 1: the Depression had made that situation much worse, so there
Speaker 1: was a huge need for relief whichever way the parkway went.
Speaker 2: This led to almost a year of debate, with both
Speaker 2: Tennessee and North Carolina laying out reasons for why their
Speaker 2: route was the better one. As examples, the Tennessee route
Speaker 2: left the mountains and proceeded along rivers at lower elevations,
Speaker 2: so there was an argument that people might get tired
Speaker 2: of the mountain driving and like that change of scenery.
Speaker 2: But the proposed North Carolina route stayed in the mountains
Speaker 2: and it was a lot more rugged, including the highest
Speaker 2: elevations that the parkway would pass through. So advocates for
Speaker 2: the North Carolina route suggested that people would appreciate those cooler,
Speaker 2: higher elevations during the hot summers rather than having to
Speaker 2: come down out of the mountains and drive through humid
Speaker 2: valleys along the river. One of the supporters of the
Speaker 2: North Carolina route was our Getty Browning. That's an engineer
Speaker 2: who had scoped out the proposed route himself on foot.
Speaker 2: Landscape architect Stanley William Abbott favored the Virginia route. Both
Speaker 2: of these men were very deeply involved with the creation
Speaker 2: of the parkway. Secretary Ikis appointed a committee chaired by
Speaker 2: Maryland Senator George Radcliffe, and the first hearings were held
Speaker 2: on February sixth, nineteen thirty four. The Radcliffe Committee recommended
Speaker 2: the Tennessee route, but rather than going with that recommendation,
Speaker 2: Itus approved only the portion that was the same for
Speaker 2: both of the plans. This led to another round of
Speaker 2: extensive lobbying by both sides and a second set of hearings.
Speaker 2: The North Carolina route was finally approved on November tenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty four. One of the arguments for going with
Speaker 2: the North Carolina route was that Tennessee was already getting
Speaker 2: federal relief and support through the Tennessee Valley Authority, which
Speaker 2: had been established the year before. A decade after all
Speaker 2: of this, Tennessee also got approval for its own parkway,
Speaker 2: the Foothills Parkway, alongside Great Smoky Mountains National Park, although today,
Speaker 2: more than eighty years later, only part of that parkway
Speaker 2: is complete and opened to the public.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about what it took to get the land
Speaker 1: to build the parkway after we paused for a sponsor break.
Speaker 2: As was the case with Skyline Drive. The road from
Speaker 2: Shenandoah National Park to Great Smoky Mountains National Park was
Speaker 2: supposed to be scenic. It was initially called the Appalachian
Speaker 2: Scenic Highway, and in the early stages of the planning
Speaker 2: and building, locals mostly just called it the Scenic President
Speaker 2: Franklin D. Roosevelt signed legislation formally establishing it as the
Speaker 2: Blue Ridge Parkway, to be administered and maintained by the
Speaker 2: Secretary of the Interior through the National Park Service on
Speaker 2: June thirtieth, nineteen thirty six. By that point, the construction
Speaker 2: had been going on for about a year. Long before that,
Speaker 2: even before the route was approved, the parkway was being
Speaker 2: described not just as a road, but as an elongated
Speaker 2: park with a much wider right of way than a
Speaker 2: typical road. The right of way is the land that
Speaker 2: a road rests on or is planned to be built on,
Speaker 2: along with the land on either side that is owned
Speaker 2: and maintained by a government entity. Exactly how much land
Speaker 2: is needed depends on the type of road, like According
Speaker 2: to the US Department of Transportation. A four lane divided
Speaker 2: highway today needs a right of way of one hundred
Speaker 2: fifty to three hundred feet as about forty five to
Speaker 2: ninety one meters or more. In the nineteen thirties, the
Speaker 2: right of way for a two lane road was often
Speaker 2: more like fifty to seventy five feet or fifteen to
Speaker 2: twenty two meters. But the plans for this parkway started
Speaker 2: out with a plan of a very ambitious one thousand
Speaker 2: feet or more than three hundred meters, to allow for
Speaker 2: more control of the area around the road and its landscape.
Speaker 2: That thousand foot right of way turned out to be
Speaker 2: enormously impractical and really expensive, so in practice, as the
Speaker 2: governments of North Carolina and Virginia got to work acquiring
Speaker 2: all this land, they settled on rights of way as
Speaker 2: narrow as two hundred feet in some places but more
Speaker 2: like eight hundred feet in others. Scenic easements were also
Speaker 2: obtained from property owners adjacent to the parkway. These easements
Speaker 2: barred quote unsightly or offensive material such as sawdust, ashes, trash,
Speaker 2: or junk, as well as things like billboards and other
Speaker 2: commercial signs in sight of the parkway. Sometimes land that
Speaker 2: the government acquired was also leased back to the land owners,
Speaker 2: provided that they could follow those standards for keeping things scenic.
Speaker 2: Just like with Shenandoah National Park, the process for obtaining
Speaker 2: the land was handled by the states, with the land
Speaker 2: then being transferred to the federal government. We talked about
Speaker 2: Virginia's process on Monday. It had passed a blanket condemnation
Speaker 2: law that allowed for one condemnation notice to cover an
Speaker 2: entire county, and then the Commonwealth could buy those condemned
Speaker 2: properties under eminent domain. Virginia would transfer the land to
Speaker 2: the federal government once a price had been agreed upon
Speaker 2: to compensate the landowner. In North Carolina, a map of
Speaker 2: the affected properties was posted at each county courthouse, and
Speaker 2: as soon as that map was posted, the property was
Speaker 2: considered to belong to the state. The state could immediately
Speaker 2: transfer it to the federal government and then negotiate a
Speaker 2: price with the landowner afterward. People typically already knew that
Speaker 2: this was coming before the maps were posted, and they
Speaker 2: were also generally allowed to keep living on in using
Speaker 2: their lands temporarily while the negotiations were going on to
Speaker 2: settle on a price. In both states, this was a
Speaker 2: confusing and frustrating process full of inconsistencies and contradictory information,
Speaker 2: and people who were furious about being forced off their land. Understandably,
Speaker 2: there were so many issues tracing back to people being
Speaker 2: allowed to stay temporarily in North Carolina that in nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty seven, the National Park Service recommended that no more
Speaker 2: land be transferred until the people living on it had
Speaker 2: been evicted. Virginia's policy of agreeing on a price before
Speaker 2: transferring the land meant that it took a lot longer
Speaker 2: to get the land of the federal government, but in
Speaker 2: North Carolina, actually getting compensation for land that had already
Speaker 2: been transferred became truly arduous. This could also have a
Speaker 2: huge impact on people who were losing only a small
Speaker 2: part of their land. Like if the parkway route cut
Speaker 2: through the middle of somebody's farm, it wasn't just that
Speaker 2: now there would be a road through the farm. It
Speaker 2: would be a road that the farmer could not connect
Speaker 2: a driveway to or use for commercial purposes. They might
Speaker 2: not even be able to cross that road easily.
Speaker 1: Most of the people who were affected by this were
Speaker 1: small individual landowners. According to federal data, most of the
Speaker 1: small farms in the region were earning only about eighty
Speaker 1: six dollars per year, so part of the thought process
Speaker 1: was that these families would ultimately be a lot better
Speaker 1: off thanks to the tourism that the parkway would bring in,
Speaker 1: But that didn't really make it easier for people who
Speaker 1: didn't want to lose their homes and farms, especially since
Speaker 1: many of them had been on that land for generations.
Speaker 1: Generally speaking, people who had more money and resources and
Speaker 1: political connections were able to get more money for their land,
Speaker 1: and in some cases get it.
Speaker 2: A lot faster. But there were also some wealthier landowners
Speaker 2: who got into really high profile multi disputes over the parkway.
Speaker 2: One was Harriet Clarkson, who had helped found the resort
Speaker 2: town of Little Switzerland, North Carolina. Among other things, he
Speaker 2: was a justice on the North Carolina Supreme Court. He
Speaker 2: was also a white supremacist, and deeds in Little Switzerland
Speaker 2: included racially restrictive covenants allowing their sale only to white people.
Speaker 2: Clarkson argued that the parkway was going to wreck Little Switzerland,
Speaker 2: and he filed suit after the States seized some of
Speaker 2: his land. This case made its way to the state
Speaker 2: Supreme Court, where Clarkson had to recuse himself. That left
Speaker 2: the court split three to three, effectively upholding an earlier decision,
Speaker 2: which meant that Clarkson got twenty five thousand dollars for
Speaker 2: his land, plus the parkway's narrowest right of way through
Speaker 2: Little Switzerland, plus multiple entrances to the parkway for the resort.
Speaker 2: By the time things were settled, the dispute had gone
Speaker 2: on for three years. The parkway did turn out to
Speaker 2: be an economic boon for Little Switzerland, but Clarkson died
Speaker 2: in nineteen forty two without seeing that.
Speaker 1: Benefit play out.
Speaker 2: Construction of the parkway took a very long time, something
Speaker 2: that we will be getting back to in a bit,
Speaker 2: and one of the other big disputes started much later
Speaker 2: in the process. So in the nineteen thirties, Hugh Morton's grandfather,
Speaker 2: Donald had negotiated a right of way at a lower
Speaker 2: elevation on land that he owned near Grandfather Mountain in
Speaker 2: North Carolina, and that land was open to tourists. Once
Speaker 2: the work on the parkway actually got started, though, the
Speaker 2: government started looking at a higher elevation route around Grandfather
Speaker 2: Mountain instead. Eventually, Morton's grandfather died and then After World
Speaker 2: War II, Morton took control of the family business. He
Speaker 2: developed that property into a much bigger tourist attraction, with
Speaker 2: a road up to the top of Grandfather Mountain and
Speaker 2: a mile high swinging bridge which if you grew up
Speaker 2: in North Carolina during a certain era you surely saw
Speaker 2: ads for. This was a suspension bridge that went across
Speaker 2: an eighty foot chasm on the property.
Speaker 1: No thank you. Morton is often framed as a conservationist
Speaker 1: who is fighting to save the mountain. He liked to
Speaker 1: say that the parkway was taking a switchblade to the
Speaker 1: Mona Lisa, and he did do a lot of conservation
Speaker 1: work at Grandfather Mountain, but he also built a road
Speaker 1: to the top of it. A big part of this
Speaker 1: dispute was really about how the parkway would affect his
Speaker 1: growing tourist attraction. He had the support of various high
Speaker 1: ranking political figures, including a series of North Carolina governors
Speaker 1: and other wealthy people, so this dispute went on for
Speaker 1: more than forty years. Ultimately, Morton and the National Park
Speaker 1: Service did reach an agreement involving a middle route between
Speaker 1: the lower and higher elevation routes, but this stretch of
Speaker 1: the Parkway was the last to be built, and it
Speaker 1: didn't happen until the nineteen eighties. We're going to come
Speaker 1: back to that in just a bit.
Speaker 2: The last prolonged dispute we're going to talk about was
Speaker 2: actually the first one that happened chronologically, and it involved
Speaker 2: the state of North Carolina, the federal government, and the
Speaker 2: Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. The Cherokee's historical homeland spanned
Speaker 2: much of the southeastern United States, in and around the
Speaker 2: southern Appalachian Mountains. Many of the Cherokee had been forced
Speaker 2: out of this territory in the nineteenth century, including during
Speaker 2: the massive removal that became known as the Trail of Tears.
Speaker 2: We talked about this more in our Georgia gold Rush episode,
Speaker 2: which came out on August twenty seventh of twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: Some of the Cherokee resisted this relocation, and others later
Speaker 1: returned to the mountains from what's now Oklahoma. Today, the
Speaker 1: Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is the only federally recognized
Speaker 1: tribe in North Carolina, with about fifteen thousand enrolled members.
Speaker 1: The Eastern Band's home in western North Carolina is the
Speaker 1: Kuala boundary, which is often described as a reservation. It
Speaker 1: is not land that the federal government set aside as
Speaker 1: a reservation for the Cherokee, though, it's land that the
Speaker 1: Cherokee purchased for themselves in the later part of the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, which is under a protective trust from the
Speaker 1: federal government. Enrolled members have the right to buy, sell,
Speaker 1: and own the land. So the parkway planners wanted to
Speaker 1: acquire fifteen miles of right away across the Kuala boundary
Speaker 1: near the southern end of the Parkway route, but the
Speaker 1: Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is a federally recognized tribe
Speaker 1: and a sovereign indigenous nation. This was also happening after
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirty four Indian Reorganization Act, also called the
Speaker 1: Indian New Deal, which had shifted the federal government's policy
Speaker 1: toward indigenous people as one of tribal sovereignty and indigenous
Speaker 1: self determination. There were multiple laws and federal policies and
Speaker 1: agencies involved with this, which meant that the State of
Speaker 1: North Carolina could not just condemn this land and acquire
Speaker 1: it under eminent domain the way that it could with
Speaker 1: non indigenous landowners outside the Kuala boundary. This conflict had
Speaker 1: so many layers. The Cherokee in North Carolina were organized
Speaker 1: and politically savvy, but they had also already been struggling
Speaker 1: economically before the start of the Great Depression, and the
Speaker 1: Great Depression had, of course worsened the situation. Most of
Speaker 1: the land and the Kuala Boundary was not arable farmland,
Speaker 1: so much of the tribe's income had been coming from timber,
Speaker 1: but the timber industry had collapsed in the wake of
Speaker 1: the depression. The fifteen miles of right of way that
Speaker 1: were wanted for the parkway included some of the tribes
Speaker 1: limited amount of arable land.
Speaker 2: There were also a lot of other questions about what
Speaker 2: the parkway would mean for the Cherokee, like what was
Speaker 2: most important the land that the Cherokee had secured for
Speaker 2: themselves in the face of colonization and removal and genocide.
Speaker 2: Or was it the agricultural products that could come from
Speaker 2: that land which people needed. Or was the tourism that
Speaker 2: the parkway could potentially bring Was that the most important?
Speaker 2: If the parkway passed through part of the Kuala boundary,
Speaker 2: what would the expectations be for the Cherokee living near
Speaker 2: it or for the Cherokee elsewhere in the Kuala Boundary.
Speaker 2: There were very real and reasonable fears that the Parkway
Speaker 2: could turn Cherokee into basically a human zoo, with non
Speaker 2: indigenous tourists expecting to see people in what they imagined
Speaker 2: was a Cherokee way of life. There were some similar
Speaker 2: concerns for the rest of the Parkway as well, about
Speaker 2: whether tourists would be expecting to see stereotypical hillbillies. But
Speaker 2: this of course had some additional nuances for the Cherokee.
Speaker 1: That was also connected to questions and differing opinions among
Speaker 1: the Cherokee about what was best for them as a people,
Speaker 1: and these are questions that had been ongoing since Europeans
Speaker 1: had started colonizing the region. Was it better to try
Speaker 1: to assimilate or to maintain Cherokee culture and identity as
Speaker 1: much as possible, or perhaps some combination of both.
Speaker 2: In nineteen thirty five, the Cherokee approved a right of
Speaker 2: way across part of the Kuala Boundary, but then they
Speaker 2: rescinded that approval after it became clear that the proposed
Speaker 2: route was going to take more arable land than had
Speaker 2: been anticipated. That led to a proposal for a land swap,
Speaker 2: giving the Cherokee arable land that was already part of
Speaker 2: Great Smoky Mountains National Park in exchange for that right
Speaker 2: of way. Principal Chief Jarrett Blythe had been opposed to
Speaker 2: the initial route through the Kuala boundary, but was open
Speaker 2: to finding some kind of compromise, But a vocal opposition
Speaker 2: had also developed within the tribe, and one of the
Speaker 2: most outspoken opponents to the park parkway was Vice Chief
Speaker 2: Fred Bauer. This dispute went on for more than three years,
Speaker 2: and by nineteen thirty nine, the Department of the Interior
Speaker 2: was starting to explore whether there was a way to
Speaker 2: seize the land under eminent domain. The state of North
Speaker 2: Carolina started working on a bill that would allow for this.
Speaker 2: All of these issues became part of the Cherokee tribal
Speaker 2: election in nineteen thirty nine. In that election, Blythe was
Speaker 2: overwhelmingly re elected as Principal Chief and Bower and some
Speaker 2: of his supporters were voted out. Afterward, the Cherokee Tribal
Speaker 2: Council voted in support of a new plan, a higher
Speaker 2: elevation ridge route for the parkway that would not impact
Speaker 2: the tribe's arable land. This was contingent upon financial compensation
Speaker 2: for that right of way, as well as a commitment
Speaker 2: from the federal government to build a regular highway to
Speaker 2: the Kuala boundary to give the Cherokee better access to
Speaker 2: the rest of the region and be all of this
Speaker 2: was settled in nineteen forty one. The Cherokee were paid
Speaker 2: forty thousand dollars for that right of way, and the
Speaker 2: federal government later built a stretch of US Highway nineteen
Speaker 2: through the Cherokee area. In addition to all of this,
Speaker 2: the Blue Ridge Parkway was intended to be a linear park,
Speaker 2: connecting a string of larger parks with campgrounds, picnic areas, trails,
Speaker 2: and other amenities along it. Some of those larger parks
Speaker 2: were built, but not all the ones that were part
Speaker 2: of the original plan. Land for recreation areas beyond the
Speaker 2: right of way for the road was acquired through the
Speaker 2: Depression era relief agency called the Resettlement Administration, through private
Speaker 2: donations and through transfers of land already controlled by the
Speaker 2: US Forest Service. Several parks along the parkway were also
Speaker 2: privately donated, including Moses H. Cone Memorial Park and Julian
Speaker 2: Price Memorial Park in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. We will
Speaker 2: get to the actual building of the parkway after another
Speaker 2: sponsor break. We mentioned two of the people who were
Speaker 2: heavily involved in the design of the Blue Ridge Parkway earlier,
Speaker 2: Stanley L.
Speaker 1: Abbot and R.
Speaker 2: Gedty Browning. Browning was a Federal Parkway engineer whose maps
Speaker 2: of the area and the suggested route became a big
Speaker 2: part of the parkway planning. Abbot was named Resident Landscape
Speaker 2: Architect and the acting Superintendent of the parkway in early
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty seven. Abbot took some inspiration from Skyline Drive
Speaker 2: in Shenandoah National Park, which was also one of the
Speaker 2: general inspirations for the Blue Ridge Parkway. He also took
Speaker 2: inspiration from the work of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted,
Speaker 2: who is sometimes called the father of American landscape architecture.
Speaker 2: Abbot and the other landscape architects who worked on the
Speaker 2: parkway wanting to fit the road into the mountains as
Speaker 2: if nature had put it there. From above, it would
Speaker 2: look like a ribbon curving through the landscape. This also
Speaker 2: applied to the view from the road. He was a
Speaker 2: big proponent of the scenic easements that we mentioned earlier.
Speaker 2: Gabbitt also developed a visual approach to the parkway that
Speaker 2: emphasized preserving and conserving the land and its history, while
Speaker 2: also keeping a managed landscape in mind for the future,
Speaker 2: sort of like a Skyline Drive. This is a thing
Speaker 2: where you look out from the parkway and it looks
Speaker 2: like it has always been that way and its natural state,
Speaker 2: but it's really a managed view that people are seeing.
Speaker 2: The construction also had a lot of similarities to Skyline Drive,
Speaker 2: including using local stone for bridges and tunnels, and focusing
Speaker 2: on native plants in view of the parkway. Lots of
Speaker 2: other roads cross under the parkway, and these bridges for
Speaker 2: the parkway were often built from local stone with a
Speaker 2: very similar rustic look. This also applied to things like
Speaker 2: retaining walls, bridges, and tunnels to be built along the
Speaker 2: parkway itself. Forty five different construction units were involved in
Speaker 2: building the parkway in the late nineteen thirties. As was
Speaker 2: the case with Skyline Drive, private contractors were involved, but
Speaker 2: much of the labor was paid for by Depression era
Speaker 2: relief programs, including the Work's Progress Administration, the Emergency Relief Administration,
Speaker 2: and the Civilian Conservation Corps. There were four CCC units
Speaker 2: that worked on the parkway, and one of them, the
Speaker 2: Gaylax Virginia Camp, was for black men. The CCC didn't
Speaker 2: build the road itself, but was focused on things like
Speaker 2: overlooks and amenities, as well as grading slopes and planting
Speaker 2: trees and other plants. While Skyline Drive and Shenandoah National
Speaker 2: Park were both opened by the late nineteen thirties, the
Speaker 2: Blue Ridge Parkway was a lot longer and a lot
Speaker 2: more complex. A stretch of about twenty miles in North
Speaker 2: Carolina near the Virginia border was open and ready for
Speaker 2: travel by nineteen thirty nine, and by the time the
Speaker 2: United States became involved in World War II, about one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty miles were complete and the first concessions
Speaker 2: had opened to the public. Like Shenandoah National Park, there
Speaker 2: wasn't an overall racial segregation policy for the park, but
Speaker 2: the initial plans had involved the construction of segregated facilities.
Speaker 2: Only some of those facilities had been built by the
Speaker 2: time the war started. New construction work on the parkway
Speaker 2: had been suspended entirely during the war, and three camps
Speaker 2: of conscientious objectors from the Civilian Public Service worked to
Speaker 2: maintain what was already done or in progress. Most of
Speaker 2: the sections that had opened were not widely used during
Speaker 2: the war due to shortages of rubber and fuel and
Speaker 2: a ban on driving for leisure. When construction resumed after
Speaker 2: the war, it was without building an new segregated facilities,
Speaker 2: but the parkway did still exist within the racial attitudes
Speaker 2: of the areas that it was passing through. To be clear,
Speaker 2: though those communities were not exclusively white. The parkway passes
Speaker 2: through areas that are home to Melungeons, which are a
Speaker 2: multi racial ethnic group in the Appalachian Mountains. That's a
Speaker 2: term that started out as a slur but was later reclaimed.
Speaker 2: The parkway also passed through a number of black communities,
Speaker 2: some of them dating back to before the Civil War,
Speaker 2: and some of the land that was acquired for the
Speaker 2: parkway was acquired from black families, including the Saunders family,
Speaker 2: who had a farm near Peaks of Water, Virginia, which
Speaker 2: they sold to the government in nineteen forty two. There's
Speaker 2: also a cemetery that meadows of Dan Baptist Church at
Speaker 2: Malpost one seventy seven that's believed to be a slave cemetery.
Speaker 2: We also talked about the southern end of the Parkway
Speaker 2: running through Cherokee Lands in the Kuala Boundary earlier in
Speaker 2: the episode. After the war, construction on the parkway was
Speaker 2: also a lot slower. There was no longer the same
Speaker 2: sense of urgency about job creation that had propelled the
Speaker 2: earlier work on the parkway, and most of the Depression
Speaker 2: era relief programs that had been paying for labor had
Speaker 2: already ended. In nineteen fifty six, the National Park Service
Speaker 2: launched a ten year project called Mission sixty six, which
Speaker 2: was a plan to expand the park Service handle a
Speaker 2: lot of badly needed maintenance and finished projects that had
Speaker 2: been languishing, including the Blue Ridge Parkway, which still was
Speaker 2: not done, and by the end of Mission sixty six
Speaker 2: only seven point seven miles of the parkway were still unfinished.
Speaker 1: That last seven point seven miles included the stretch around
Speaker 1: Grandfather Mountain, which we mentioned before the break as being
Speaker 1: in dispute for decades. The National Park Service and Hugh
Speaker 1: Morton finally reached an agreement in the nineteen seventies. A
Speaker 1: lot of the descriptions of this agreement make it sound
Speaker 1: as though Morton's approval required the National Park Service to
Speaker 1: build a viaduct around the side of the Grandfather Mountain
Speaker 1: to protect the ecosystem, but a viaduct had really been
Speaker 1: part of the plan, since parkway planners had decided to
Speaker 1: pursue a higher elevation route than the one that Morton's
Speaker 1: grandfather had originally approved. The Lenco Viaduct around Grandfather Mountain was,
Speaker 1: for the time an engineering marvel. It's made of one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty three pre cast concrete segments, each of
Speaker 1: them unique. They are held up by piers that were
Speaker 1: cast on site. The bridge itself was the only approach
Speaker 1: to the construction site and heavy machinery would have damaged
Speaker 1: the landscape, so all of the work was done from above,
Speaker 1: with equipment being brought in by helicopter and the segments
Speaker 1: placed one at a time by a crane that moved
Speaker 1: along the viaduct as it was building it. This one
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty foot viaduct was finished in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty three and lost almost ten million dollars, and it
Speaker 1: earned eight different professional awards, including the nineteen eighty four
Speaker 1: Presidential Award for Design Excellence.
Speaker 2: Side note. Hugh Morton died in two thousand and six,
Speaker 2: and two years later the Morton family sold part of
Speaker 2: their lands to the state of North Carolina. It is
Speaker 2: now Grandfather Mountain State Park. The roadways connecting the viaduct
Speaker 2: to the rest of the parkway on either side were
Speaker 2: finished in nineteen eighty seven, at which point the entire
Speaker 2: four hundred and sixty nine miles were opened for public travel.
Speaker 2: This project had taken more than fifty years to complete.
Speaker 2: Over the course of its construction, it also served as
Speaker 2: a training ground for engineers for essentially a generation, about
Speaker 2: ten percent of the engineers at the US Bureau of
Speaker 2: Public Roads. Later the Federal Highway Administration went through part
Speaker 2: of their training working on the Blue Ridge Parkway. When
Speaker 2: the parkway was first proposed as a connection between Shenandoah
Speaker 2: National Park and Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the assumption
Speaker 2: was that a lot of people would be using it
Speaker 2: to travel from one park to the other, but by
Speaker 2: the time the parkway was mostly finished in nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 2: there were way more options to do that thanks to
Speaker 2: the Interstate Highway System spearheaded under the administration of President
Speaker 2: Dwight D. Eisenhower, and many other road building projects. When
Speaker 2: the parkway is fully open, which currently it is not,
Speaker 2: it takes at least ten or twelve hours to drive
Speaker 2: from one end to the other, and that's without really
Speaker 2: stopping to eat or go to the bathroom or you know,
Speaker 2: look at anything. Some people do the whole thing as
Speaker 2: more of a five or six day road trip with
Speaker 2: stops and sightseeing. But if your goal is just to
Speaker 2: get from one of those parks to the other, today
Speaker 2: there are highway routes that take more like five or
Speaker 2: six hours, as long as you don't run into a
Speaker 2: lot of traffic problems.
Speaker 1: Even before the Linco Viaduct was finished, the Blue Ridge
Speaker 1: Parkway had become one of the most pot popular parts
Speaker 1: of the National park system, surpassing Shenandoah National Park as
Speaker 1: the most visited national park in the US, and it
Speaker 1: definitely brought a surge of tourism to the Blue Ridge
Speaker 1: Mountains of North Carolina and Virginia. According to the National
Speaker 1: Park Service, when it's fully open, the parkway creates one
Speaker 1: point three billion dollars in economic benefits annually, and it
Speaker 1: supports almost eighteen thousand jobs. Obviously, though those communities relationships
Speaker 1: with tourism are very complicated, the.
Speaker 2: Parkway has also faced other challenges. Although its original planners
Speaker 2: were focused on the preservation of native ecosystems and replanting
Speaker 2: native species along the parkway. There's some evidence suggesting that
Speaker 2: the parkway and its human and vehicle traffic have made
Speaker 2: it easier for non native species and pathogens to really
Speaker 2: spread through the area. This includes plants like oriental bittersweet
Speaker 2: and Flora bunder rose, which can compete other plants, and
Speaker 2: insects like emerald ashboor and hemlock woolly adelgin. And of course,
Speaker 2: there are issues like air pollution and runoff from roads
Speaker 2: and parking lots that would not be there without the parkway.
Speaker 1: And the reason that we keep saying when it's fully
Speaker 1: open when talking about the road is that Hurricane Helene
Speaker 1: did immense damage to the Blue Ridge Parkway, including downing
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of trees, causing landslides that buried or
Speaker 1: undercut the roadway, and washing out parts of the road
Speaker 1: through flooding. The entire parkway had to be closed immediately
Speaker 1: after the storm, and more than one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: miles of it are still closed as of the end
Speaker 1: of May twenty twenty five. These closed sections are all
Speaker 1: in North Carolina. The Virginia section is open apart from
Speaker 1: some roadwork unrelated to Helene and the Roanoke Mountain Loop,
Speaker 1: which has been closed since a landslide in twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: that was caused by the remnants of Hurricane Michael. There
Speaker 1: has been some funding allocated to repairing all of this
Speaker 1: immense destruction, including disaster relief funding allocated by Congress and
Speaker 1: funds from the Federal Highway Administration. This includes thirty two
Speaker 1: point six million dollars in funding to be split between
Speaker 1: the US Forest Service and the National Park Service for
Speaker 1: post Hellene repairs to the parkway. But this will probably
Speaker 1: be a many, many years long recovery process, especially since
Speaker 1: the National Park Service another federal agencies, have already been
Speaker 1: faced with budget cuts and layoffs under the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: There's a massive reduction enforced plan for the National Park
Speaker 1: Service that as of this moment that we're recording, still
Speaker 1: seems to be tentative, not fully clear exactly how damaging
Speaker 1: the impact will be for all of that.
Speaker 2: That's the Bluegridge Parkway.
Speaker 1: Do you have listener mail?
Speaker 2: I do I have listener mail from mave and and
Speaker 2: this is about a little bit of an older episode,
Speaker 2: but we ran it as a Saturday Classic last year.
Speaker 2: The subject line is longtime listener and the subject of bees.
Speaker 2: Hi Holly and Tracy, I hope you are both doing well.
Speaker 2: I'm a longtime listener since about twenty fifteen and first
Speaker 2: time writer. I was recently listening to the Saturday Classic
Speaker 2: on beekeeping, and some of your discussion of the bees
Speaker 2: themselves prompted me to chime in with my own experience.
Speaker 2: I thought you may like hearing more about the state
Speaker 2: or research for bees nowadays. While I can't speak for
Speaker 2: every state, I spent the better part of a year
Speaker 2: surveying bee species in central Louisiana as an undergraduate research
Speaker 2: under my college's entomologist, who has a fondness for them.
Speaker 2: Biology and especially entomology are interesting fields because despite how
Speaker 2: long humans have observed the natural world, there is still
Speaker 2: a lot we don't know. Part of the issue is
Speaker 2: the disbalanced ratio of entomologists to insects. There are so
Speaker 2: so many insects that most entomologists focus entirely on a
Speaker 2: select few groups, or even just one group. There's also
Speaker 2: a severe lack of funding for biological sciences in general.
Speaker 2: But I'm sure you could have guessed that yourselves I
Speaker 2: was faced with that unknown in a very real way
Speaker 2: when I started doing research for my proposal for the
Speaker 2: survey finding and found next to no prior research on
Speaker 2: bees in the state outside of two heavily populated areas.
Speaker 2: So when you mentioned the Africanized honeybees, I found it
Speaker 2: a bit amusing, because while it is entirely possible that
Speaker 2: they're in Louisiana, we have no idea. Even my studies
Speaker 2: barely scratched the surface of the species present that there
Speaker 2: is a bigger project looking into it right now that
Speaker 2: I'm not part of. Like you said, though, honeybees have
Speaker 2: varying effects depending on the conditions they are in. On
Speaker 2: the green of our campus last spring, we did not
Speaker 2: find a single bee that was not the European honeybee
Speaker 2: or Eastern carpenter bee. On the other hand, and the
Speaker 2: few times we collected in a prairie with only native forage,
Speaker 2: we didn't find a single one. Just as well, the
Speaker 2: physical differences between the Africanized bees and normal honey bees
Speaker 2: is so minor that it would likely be overlooked entirely
Speaker 2: unless one was specifically looking for it or had familiarity
Speaker 2: with them. There were even times we got the bees
Speaker 2: that matched none of the resources we had available, but
Speaker 2: due to the complicated nature of DNA testing such a
Speaker 2: small organism, we didn't have much luck figuring out what
Speaker 2: they were past their family. I'd also like to mention
Speaker 2: for bee lovers you might like to check out the
Speaker 2: Xerxes Society as and official pollinator gardens. You are likely
Speaker 2: to find many lovely places you can support in some
Speaker 2: way and go observe bees and other pollinators like butterflies, beetles,
Speaker 2: and moths. I love your podcasts and everything you guys do,
Speaker 2: and I have been listening since shortly after both of
Speaker 2: you were on as hosts. When I first listened to
Speaker 2: I was in a dark place in my life, and
Speaker 2: hearing the two of you helped me feel human again
Speaker 2: and less lonely. Their podcast has gotten me through a
Speaker 2: lot of hard times nowadays. I have a long commute
Speaker 2: and a lot of time where I do tedious lab work,
Speaker 2: so having you guys to listen to is one of
Speaker 2: my favorite ways to spend the time. Even subjects I
Speaker 2: don't think will be interesting at verse always end up
Speaker 2: intriguing me once I start the episode. Mayve goes on
Speaker 2: to say that that as a longtime lover of Cela Camp.
Speaker 2: The episode on Marjorie Courtney Lattery was a favorite, and
Speaker 2: there are also some suggestions for future episodes. And we
Speaker 2: have some pet tax with a dots named Fenrier who
Speaker 2: is called Finny, a lab mix Sissy, an orange cat
Speaker 2: named Nubby, a fuzz muffin Teddy who likes to shed
Speaker 2: over everybody, and a mandatory alligator picture. And then uh
Speaker 2: may have apologizes for being wordy. You do not need
Speaker 2: to apologize. This was a lovely email with a lot
Speaker 2: of very awesome pet pictures. All of these animals are
Speaker 2: very very cute. I'm gonna click until I get to
Speaker 2: the alligator one.
Speaker 1: I love an alligator.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think the alligator is anyone's pet. It
Speaker 2: is just out in the wild. I mean I say
Speaker 2: that as though it was likely it's not anyone's pet. Obviously,
Speaker 2: it is an alligator in the wild, just hanging out
Speaker 2: by the edge of the water. Thank you so much
Speaker 2: for this email. I like bees a lot, and so
Speaker 2: getting to return to the beekeeping episode, even though it
Speaker 2: was a bit ago, is lovely. If you'd like to
Speaker 2: send us a note about this or any other podcast
Speaker 2: or at History podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and you
Speaker 2: can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app or
Speaker 2: anywhere else you like to get your podcasts. Stuff you
Speaker 2: Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 2: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.