The Blue Ridge Parkway

"Well, sir, I've looked at this ole Blue Ridge many a time
and racked my brain trying to figure out what it was good fur
and now, by golly, I know. It's good fur a road!"
Harley Jolly The Blue Ridge Parkway

The Blue Ridge Parkway was a Depression-born project designed to link the Shenandoah and Great Smokey National Parks. Originally the Parkway was to run through Tennessee, but a mountaintop-to-mountaintop route through North Carolina was chosen because of its breathtaking views.

In normal times an undertaking like the Blue Ridge Parkway might have been impractical, but, with millions left unemployed by the Depression, the project promised to put thousands back to work at government expense. Work was begun on the Parkway in 1935 by private contractors and work crews under the supervision of the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Emergency Relief Administration. Most of the Parkway's 469 miles, running from Rockfish Gap, Virginia to the Oconaluftee River in North Carolina, opened in sections throughout the late 1930s and 1940s.

By the late 1960s, the only section not yet completed was the area around Grandfather Mountain. Hugh Morton, owner of the mountain, adamantly believed that Parkway construction near the top of Grandfather would ruin its rugged beauty. Parkway officials felt that only a high, dramatic route would maintain the scenic qualities of the rest of the Parkway.

The eventual compromise - the Linn Cove Viaduct - proved to be the triumph for everyone. The viaduct, called the most complicated bridge ever built, cantilevers away from Grandfather using 153 precast segments, each one individually designed. The completion of the Linn Cove Viaduct also represented the completion of the Blue Ridge Parkway.