Blue Ridge Parkway

Summary

Stuff You Missed in History Class: Blue Ridge Parkway Episode Release Date: June 4, 2025
Hosts: Holly Fry & Tracy V. Wilson
Produced by iHeartPodcasts

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Introduction

In this riveting episode of Stuff You Missed in History Class, hosts Holly Fry and Tracy V. Wilson delve into the intricate history and development of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Inspired by Tracy's visit to Asheville and a historical display at mile marker 382, the episode explores the parkway's origins, construction challenges, socio-economic impacts, and its enduring legacy.

Origins and Planning

The Blue Ridge Parkway was envisioned as a scenic roadway stretching from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the North Carolina-Tennessee border, spanning 469 miles—the longest linear park in the United States. Tracy V. Wilson recounts the initial inspiration:

"The Blue Ridge Parkway is the longest roadway planned as a single unit, deeply connected to the federal government's efforts to provide relief from the Great Depression and to conserve the landscape and the views of the Blue Ridge Mountains." ([02:23])

Early Proposals:

• 1906 Proposal: North Carolina State geologist Joseph Hyde Pratt proposed a scenic toll road from Marion, Virginia, to Tallulah, Georgia. Construction began in 1914 but was halted by World War I.
• 1928 Revival: Discussions resurfaced two decades later, largely influenced by the creation of Shenandoah, Great Smoky Mountains, and Mammoth Cave National Parks in 1926.

Construction and Land Acquisition

Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes officially approved the parkway's construction in November 1933, allocating $4 million as part of the New Deal's public works projects. Tracy explains the complexities of land acquisition:

"Acquiring the necessary land was a confusing and frustrating process, full of inconsistencies and contradictory information, leaving many landowners furious about being forced off their property." ([20:50])

Right of Way Challenges:

• Ambitious Plans: Initially planned with a 1,000-foot right of way to preserve the landscape, practical constraints reduced this to between 200 and 800 feet in various sections.
• Easements: Scenic easements prohibited unsightly materials and commercial signage, ensuring the parkway remained visually appealing.

Conflicts and Legal Issues

The parkway's construction was marred by several disputes, notably involving prominent landowners and indigenous communities.

Harriet Clarkson Case:

• Background: Clarkson, a North Carolina Supreme Court Justice and founder of Little Switzerland, opposed the parkway's route through his land, leading to a prolonged legal battle.
• Outcome: The case concluded with Clarkson receiving $25,000 compensation and additional access provisions for his resort, which eventually benefited from increased tourism. Clarkson passed away in 1942, never witnessing the full economic benefits.

Hugh Morton and Grandfather Mountain:

• Conflict: Hugh Morton's grandfather negotiated a lower elevation route near Grandfather Mountain, but the government later preferred a higher elevation path.
• Resolution: After decades of dispute, a compromise route featuring the Lynn Cove Viaduct was constructed in the 1980s, completed in 1987, marking the parkway's full completion.

Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians:

• Issue: The parkway's route required 15 miles of right of way across the Koala Boundary, impacting Cherokee-owned land.
• Resolution: Following extensive negotiations and a 1939 tribal election, the Cherokee were compensated $40,000 and received improved highway access, allowing the parkway to proceed without significantly disrupting Cherokee lands.

"The Cherokee Tribal Council voted in support of a higher elevation ridge route, contingent upon financial compensation and improved infrastructure, thereby settling the dispute in 1941." ([31:04])

Construction Techniques and Design

Stanley L. Abbott and R. Getty Browning played pivotal roles in designing the parkway to harmonize with the natural landscape. Influenced by Frederick Law Olmsted, the parkway was envisioned as an "elongated park," seamlessly integrating with the surrounding environment.

"From above, the parkway looks like a ribbon curving through the landscape, fitting into the mountains as if nature had placed it there." ([37:18])

Labor and Materials:

• Workforce: Construction involved multiple Depression-era relief programs, including the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which focused on amenities and landscape conservation.
• Materials: Local stone was predominantly used for bridges and retaining walls, ensuring a rustic and native aesthetic.

Impact and Legacy

Economic Benefits: By its completion, the Blue Ridge Parkway facilitated $1.3 billion in annual economic benefits and supported nearly 18,000 jobs. It surpassed Shenandoah National Park as the most visited national park in the U.S., significantly boosting tourism in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Cultural and Environmental Considerations: While the parkway promoted conservation and native species preservation, it inadvertently facilitated the spread of non-native species and introduced environmental challenges such as air pollution and runoff.

"The parkway has made it easier for non-native species and pathogens to spread, impacting local ecosystems adversely." ([45:16])

Recent Challenges and Current Status

Natural disasters have posed significant threats to the parkway's integrity.

Hurricane Helene (2025):

• Damage: Helene caused extensive tree loss, landslides, and road washouts, leading to the closure of over 150 miles in North Carolina.
• Recovery Efforts: Federal funding, including $32.6 million from Congress and the Federal Highway Administration, has been allocated for repairs. However, budget cuts and agency layoffs have slowed recovery progress.

"More than 150 miles of the parkway remain closed as of May 2025, primarily in North Carolina, due to Hurricane Helene's devastation." ([46:36])

Conclusion

The Blue Ridge Parkway stands as a testament to American resilience and the intricate balance between development and conservation. From its New Deal origins to its contemporary challenges, the parkway continues to be a cherished scenic route, embodying both the beauty and complexities of preserving natural landscapes for future generations.

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Notable Quotes:

• Tracy V. Wilson ([02:23]): "The Blue Ridge Parkway is the longest roadway planned as a single unit, deeply connected to the federal government's efforts to provide relief from the Great Depression and to conserve the landscape and the views of the Blue Ridge Mountains."

• Tracy V. Wilson ([20:50]): "Acquiring the necessary land was a confusing and frustrating process, full of inconsistencies and contradictory information, leaving many landowners furious about being forced off their property."

• Tracy V. Wilson ([31:04]): "The Cherokee Tribal Council voted in support of a higher elevation ridge route, contingent upon financial compensation and improved infrastructure, thereby settling the dispute in 1941."

• Holly Fry ([37:18]): "From above, the parkway looks like a ribbon curving through the landscape, fitting into the mountains as if nature had placed it there."

• Holly Fry ([45:16]): "The parkway has made it easier for non-native species and pathogens to spread, impacting local ecosystems adversely."

• Tracy V. Wilson ([46:36]): "More than 150 miles of the parkway remain closed as of May 2025, primarily in North Carolina, due to Hurricane Helene's devastation."

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This summary captures the essence of the episode, providing a comprehensive overview of the Blue Ridge Parkway's history, development, and current status, enriched with direct quotes and timestamps for authenticity and depth.

Transcript

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

And I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

It's time for the episode on the Blue Ridge Parkway that was inspired by my recent trip to Asheville and a historical display of that I saw outside the Folk Arts center at mile marker 382. When I saw that display, I thought, hey, maybe we should do an episode on the Blue Ridge Parkway. And then some very cursory research turned that into it should have an introduction on Skyline Drive, and then the rest of the episode will be on the Blue Ridge Parkway. And then during the note taking, Skyline Drive grew into its whole episode by itself, which came out on Monday. I think we said last time this isn't really a two parter. There are some connections between the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive, including that they are physically connected at Rockfish Gap in Virginia. The Blue ridge Parkway is 469 miles long, making it the longest linear park in the United States and the longest roadway that was planned as a single unit. Like Skyline Drive, its creation was deeply connected to the federal government's efforts to provide relief from the Great Depression and to conserve the landscape and the views of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

[Holly Fry]

The Blue Ridge Parkway was planned as a road that would stretch from Shenandoah national park in Virginia to Great Smoky Mountains national park on the border of North Carolina and Tennessee. As we talked about on Monday, the Southern Appalachian National Park Committee recommended the creation of both of these parks in 1924, and President Calvin Coolidge signed their creation into law on May 22, 1926. But there was actually a similar road planned through the Blue Ridge Mountains before that, a scenic toll road that would run from Marion, Virginia, to Tallulah, Georgia.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This was proposed in 1906 by North Carolina State geologist Joseph Hyde Pratt, who was also a member of the Commission of the Appalachian Forestry Reserve. Pratt secured a charter for a company to build the road, and construction on the first stretch of it started in 1914. But then World War I officially started in June of that year, and that put an end to that construction. The construction did not restart once the war was over. A very short stretch of today's Blue Ridge Parkway follows Pratt's proposed route. It is just a couple of miles in North Carolina, a little bit south of Linville Falls.

[Holly Fry]

Discussions of a highway through the Blue Ridge mountains resumed in 1928, two years after Congress authorized the establishment of Shenandoah, Great Smoky Mountains and Mammoth Cave National Parks. The Eastern national park to Park highway association, led by Representative Maurice H. Thatcher of Kentucky, started advocating for a highway that would link all of those parks together.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So this was inspired not just by the creation of those parks, but also by the national park to park highway, which connected 12 national parks in the western United States, including Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Mount Rainier. The national park to park highway was a loop more than 5,000 miles long that traveled through 11 states. It had been built to help promote travel to the parks. And also out of necessity, the federal government had Established a collection of national parks. And they were really known for their uniqueness and their beauty. But there also just wasn't much infrastructure that would allow people to actually visit them, or much in the way of maps. For the roads that did exist. This became a bigger need as cars became more popular, more affordable, and more available. That point, sort of the popularity of cars had outpaced the establishment of improved roads to handle them.

[Holly Fry]

While the national park to park highway existed, it was pretty rugged. Most of it was not even paved. One group of people departed Denver, Colorado, on August 26, 1920, the day after the highway was dedicated to travel the whole route. And they stopped for lunches, dinners, and speaking engagements. And then they spent the night somewhere, every night. And this little road trip took them 76 days.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So the idea of an eastern national park to park highway Got some support, including from the national park service and the bureau of public roads, which later became the federal highway administration. The idea for the eastern highway was that it would build on established roads and highways. It would improve ones that already existed and create new ones where they did not exist. This proposed park to park highway Would travel through beautiful parts of the country, but it was also meant to be a regular highway, Open for recreation and for commercial traffic.

[Holly Fry]

The great depression started just a year after the eastern national park to park highway association Started advocating for this, which meant very little progress was made on actually building it. And then things went in a different direction. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt Visited civilian conservation corps camps in Shenandoah national park. So, as a recap, the CCC was a work relief program that was part of Roosevelt's new deal, and it was generally focused on projects related to natural resources. During that visit, Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia suggested that a new road could be built through the blue ridge mountains, Similar to Skyline Drive that was in the process of being built through Shenandoah national park. And that road would connect Shenandoah to Great smoky mountains national park.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This would be a little bit different from the proposed eastern national park to park highway. Byrd did not pitch the idea of connecting all three of the parks, Just Shenandoah and the smokies, Although there were some various proposals to extend the southern end of this scenic road into Georgia. And it also would not be a regular highway. It would be a limited access road with no commercial traffic.

[Holly Fry]

In June of 1933, Congress passed the national industrial recovery act, which was another part of the new deal. This act did a lot. It suspended various antitrust laws and instead encouraged businesses to collaborate with one another and to create codes of fair competition that would establish industry wide standards for things like wages, prices and consumer protections. It also protected workers rights to form unions and collectively bargain. Title 2 of the act was focused on public works and construction projects and it said in part, quote, not less than $50 million of the amount made available by this act shall be allotted for a. National forest highways b. National forest roads, trails, bridges and related projects. C. National park roads and trails in national parks approved or authorized. That $50 million was part of a $3.3 billion federal public works program.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

On November 24, 1933, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes approved the construction of a parkway connecting Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountains national parks, and as a public works project the following month, $4 million was allotted for the construction. The Federal Highway act of 1934 also included language about increasing employment by allocating money for road construction, including, quote, survey construction, reconstruction and maintenance of highways, roads, trails, bridges, and related projects in national parks and monuments and national forests.

[Holly Fry]

The next step was to plan a route. The easier part was the northern end in Virginia, since the road was supposed to connect to Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. But since Great Smoky Mountains national park is on the border between North Carolina and Tennessee, the southern end of the road could approach it through either of those states. Although there were plenty of critics of this project, overall, both states were extremely eager to be home to the southern end of the parkway, since the construction would bring jobs to the area and the finished parkway would be a source of tourism dollars. This region had been economically depressed even before the start of the Great Depression, and the Depression had made that situation much worse, so there was a huge need for relief whichever way the parkway went.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This led to almost a year of debate, with both Tennessee and North Carolina laying out reasons for why their route was the better one. As examples, the Tennessee route left the mountains and proceeded along rivers at lower elevations, so there was an argument that people might get tired of the mountain driving and like that change of scenery. But the proposed North Carolina route stayed in the mountains, and it was a lot more rugged, including the highest elevations that the parkway would pass through. So advocates for the North Carolina route suggested that people would appreciate those cooler, higher elevations during the hot summer summers rather than having to come down out of the mountains and drive through humid valleys along the river. One of the supporters of the North Carolina route was R. Getty Browning. That's an engineer who had scoped out the proposed route himself on foot. Landscape architect Stanley William Abbott favored the Virginia route. Both of these men were very deeply involved with the creation of the parkway.

[Holly Fry]

Secretary Ickes appointed a committee chaired by Maryland Senator George Radcliffe, and the first hearings were held on February 6, 1934. The Radcliffe Committee recommended the Tennessee route, but rather than going with that recommendation, Ickes approved only the portion that was the same for both of the plans. This led to another round of extensive lobbying by both sides and a second set of hearings.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The North Carolina route was finally approved on November 10, 1934. One of the arguments for going with the North Carolina route was that Tennessee was already getting federal relief and support through the Tennessee Valley Authority, which had been established the year before. A decade after all of this, Tennessee also got approval for its own parkway, the Foothills Parkway alongside Great Smoky Mountains national park, although Today, more than 80 years later, only part of that parkway is complete and opened to the public.

[Holly Fry]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

As was the case with Skyline Drive, the road from Shenandoah national park to Great Smoky Mountains national park was supposed to be scenic. It was initially called the Appalachian Scenic highway, and in the early stages of the planning and building, locals mostly just called it the Scenic. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed legislation formally establishing it as the Blue Ridge Parkway, to be administered and maintained by the Secretary of the Interior through the national park service on June 30, 1936. By that point, the construction had been going on for about a year.

[Holly Fry]

Long before that, even before the route was approved, the parkway was being described not just as a road but as an elongated park with a much wider right of way than a typical road.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The right of way is the land.

[Holly Fry]

That a road rests on or is planned to be built on, along with the land on either side that is owned and maintained by a government entity. Exactly how much land is needed depends on the type of road. Like According to the U.S. department of Transportation, a four lane divided highway today needs a right of way of 150 to 300ft. That's about 45 to 91 meters or more. In the 1930s, the right of way for a two lane road was often more like 50 to 75ft or 15 to 22 meters. But the plans for this parkway started out with a plan of a very ambitious 1,000ft or more than 300 meters to allow for more control of the area around the road and its landscape.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

That thousand foot right of way turned out to be enormously impractical and really extremely expensive. So in practice, as the governments of North Carolina and Virginia got to work acquiring all this land, they settled on rights of way as narrow as 200ft in some places, but more like 800ft in others. Scenic easements were also obtained from property owners adjacent to the parkway. These easements barred, quote, unsightly or offensive material such as sawdust, ashes, trash or junk, as well as things like billboards and other commercial signs inside of the parkway. Sometimes, land that the government acquired was also leased back to the landowners, provided that they could follow those standards for keeping things scenic.

[Holly Fry]

Just like with Shenandoah national park, the process for obtaining the land was handled by the states, with the land then being transferred to the federal government. We talked about Virginia's process on Monday. It had passed a blanket condemnation law that allowed for one condemnation notice to cover an entire county, and then the commonwealth could buy those condemned properties under eminent domain. Virginia would transfer the land to the federal government once a price had been agreed upon to compensate the landowner.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In North Carolina, a map of the affected properties was posted at each county courthouse. And as soon as that map was posted, the property was considered to belong to the state. The state could immediately transfer it to the federal government and then negotiate a price with the landowner afterward. People typically already knew that this was coming before the maps were posted. And they were also generally allowed to keep living on and using their lands temporarily while the negotiations were going on to settle on a price.

[Holly Fry]

In both states, this was a confusing and frustrating process, full of inconsistencies and contradictory information and people who were furious about being forced off their land. Understandably, there were so many issues tracing Back to people being allowed to stay temporarily in North Carolina, that in 1937, the National Park Service recommended that no more land be transferred until the people living on it had been evicted. Virginia's policy of agreeing on a price before transferring the land meant that it took a lot longer to get the land to the federal government. But in North Carolina, actually getting compensation for land, land that had already been transferred, became truly arduous.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This could also have a huge impact on people who were losing only a small part of their land. Like if the parkway route cut through the middle of somebody's farm, it wasn't just that now there would be a road through the farm. It would be a road that the farmer could not connect a driveway to or use for commercial purposes. They might not even be able to cross that road easily.

[Holly Fry]

Most of the people who were affected by this were small individual landowners. According to federal data, most of the small farms in the region were earning only about $86 per year. So part of the thought process was that these families would ultimately be a lot better off thanks to the tourism that the parkway would bring in. But that didn't really make it easier for people who didn't want to lose their homes and farms, especially since many of them had been on that land for generations.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Generally speaking, people who had more money and resources and political connections were able to get more money for their land and in some cases, get it a lot faster. But there were also some wealthier landowners who got into really high profile, multi year disputes over the parkway. One was Harriet Clarkson, who had helped found the resort town of Little Switzerland, North Carolina. Among other things, he was a justice on the North Carolina Supreme Court. He was also a white supremacist, and deeds in Little Switzerland included racially restrictive covenants allowing their sale only to white people.

[Holly Fry]

Clarkson argued that the parkway was going to wreck Little Switzerland, and he filed suit after the state seized some of his land. This case made its way to the state supreme court, where Clarkson had to recuse himself. That left the court split three to three, effectively upholding an earlier decision, which meant that Clarkson got $25,000 for his land, plus the parkway's narrowest right of way through Little Switzerland, plus multiple entrances to the parkway for the resort. By the time things were settled, the dispute had gone on for three years. The parkway did turn out to be an economic boon for Little Switzerland, but Clarkson died in 1942 without seeing that benefit play out.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Construction of the parkway took a very long time, Something that we will be getting back to in a Bit. And one of the other big disputes started much later in the process. So in the 1930s, Hugh Morton's grandfather Donald had negotiated a right of way at a lower elevation on land that he owned near Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina. And that land was open to tourists. Once the work on the parkway actually got started, though, the government started looking at a higher elevation route around Grandfather Mountain instead. Eventually, Morton's grandfather died. And then after World War II, Morton took control of the family business. He developed that property into a much bigger tourist attraction with a road up to the top of Grandfather Mountain and a mile high swinging bridge, which if you grew up in North Carolina during a certain era, you surely saw ads for this was a suspension bridge that went across an 80 foot chasm on the property.

[Holly Fry]

No, thank you. Morton is often framed as a conservationist who is fighting to save the mountain. He liked to say that the parkway was taking a switchblade to the Mona Lisa. And he did do a lot of conservation work at Grandfather Mountain, but he also built a road to the top of it. A big part of this dispute was really about how the parkway would affect his growing tourist attraction. He had the support of various high ranking political figures, including a series of North Carolina governors and other wealthy people. So this dispute went on for more than 40 years. Ultimately, Morton and the National Park Service did reach an agreement involving a middle route between the lower and higher elevation routes. But this stretch of the parkway was the last to be built and it didn't happen until the 1980s. We're going to come back to that in just a bit.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The last prolonged dispute we're going to talk about was actually the first one that happened chronologically and it involved the state of North Carolina, the federal government and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. The Cherokee's historical homeland spanned much of the southeastern United States in and around the southern Appalachian Mountains. Many of the Cherokee had been forced out of this territory in the 19th century, including during the massive removal that became known as the Trail of Tears. We talked about this more in our Georgia Gold Rush episode which came out on August 27th of 2018.

[Holly Fry]

Some of the Cherokee resisted this relocation and others later returned to the mountains from what's now Oklahoma. Today, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is the only federally recognized tribe in North Carolina with about 15,000 enrolled members. The Eastern Band's home in western North Carolina is the Koala Boundary, which is often described as a reservation. It is not land that the federal government set aside as a reservation for the Cherokee, though it's land that the Cherokee purchased for themselves in the later part of the 19th century, which is under a protective trust from the federal government. Enrolled members have the right to buy, sell and own the land.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So the parkway planners wanted to acquire 15 miles of right of way across the Koala boundary near the southern end of the parkway route. But the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is a federally recognized tribe and a sovereign indigenous nation. This was also happening after the 1934 Indian Reorganization act, also called the Indian New Deal, which had shifted the federal government's new policy toward indigenous people as one of tribal sovereignty and indigenous self determination. There were multiple laws and federal policies and agencies involved with this, which meant that the State of North Carolina could not just condemn this land and acquire it under eminent domain the way that it could with non indigenous landowners outside the Qualla boundary.

[Holly Fry]

This conflict had so many layers. The Cherokee in North Carolina were organized and politically savvy, but they had also already been struggling economically before the start of the Great Depression. And the Great Depression had of course, worsened the situation. Most of the land in the Koala boundary was not arable farmland. So much of the tribe's income had been coming from timber. But the timber industry had collapsed in the wake of the depression. The 15 miles of right of way that were wanted for the parkway included some of the tribe's limited amount of arable land.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

There were also a lot of other questions about what the parkway would mean for the Cherokee. Like what was most important? The land that the Cherokee had secured for themselves in the face of colonization and removal and genocide? Or was it the agricultural products that could come from that land which people needed? Or was the tourism that the parkway could potentially bring? Was that the most important? If the parkway passed through part of the Koala boundary, what would the expectations be for the Cherokee living near it or for the Cherokee elsewhere in the Koala boundary? There were very real and reasonable fears that the parkway could turn Cherokee into basically a human zoo with non indigenous tourists expecting to see people in what they imagined was a Cherokee way of life. There were some similar concerns for the rest of the parkway as well, about whether tourists would be expecting to see stereotypical hillbillies. But this, of course, had some additional nuances for the Cherokee that was also.

[Holly Fry]

Connected to questions and differing opinions among the Cherokee about what was best for them as a people. And these were questions that had been ongoing since Europeans had started colonizing the region. Was it better to try to assimilate or to maintain Cherokee culture and identity as much as possible? Or perhaps some combination of both.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1935, the Cherokee approved a right of way across part of the Koala boundary. But then they rescinded that approval after it became clear that the proposed route was going to take more arable land than had been anticipated. That led to a proposal for a land swap giving the Cherokee arable land that was already part of Great Smoky Mountains national park in exchange for that right of way. Principal Chief Jarrett Blythe had been opposed to the initial route through the Koala boundary but was open to finding some kind of compromise. But a vocal opposition had also developed within the tribe and one of the most outspoken spoken opponents to the parkway was Vice Chief Fred Bauer.

[Holly Fry]

This dispute went on for more than three years and by 1939 the Department of the Interior was starting to explore whether there was a way to seize the land under eminent domain. The State of North Carolina started working on a bill that would allow for this.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

All of these issues became part of the Cherokee tribal election in 1939. In that election, Blythe was overwhelmingly re elected as principal chief and Bauer and some of his supporters were voted out. Afterward, the Cherokee Tribal Council voted in support of a new plan, a higher elevation ridge route for the parkway that would not impact the tribe's arable land. This was contingent upon financial compensation for that right of way as well as a commitment from the federal government to build a regular highway to the Qualla boundary to give Cherokee better access to the rest of the region and beyond. All of this was settled in 1941. The Cherokee were paid $40,000 for that right of way and the federal government later built a stretch of U.S. highway 19 through the Cherokee area.

[Holly Fry]

In addition to all of this, the Blue Ridge Parkway was intended to be a linear park connecting a string of larger parks with campgrounds, picnic areas, trails and other amenities along it. Some of those larger parks were built, but not all the ones that were part of the original plan. Land for recreation areas beyond the right of way for the road was acquired through the depression era relief agency called the Resettlement Administration, through private donations and through transfers of land already controlled by the U.S. forest Service. Several parks along the parkway were also privately donated, including Moses H. Cone Memorial park and Julian Price Memorial park in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. China.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

We will get to the actual building of the parkway after another sponsor break. If you own a home, here's an interesting fact for you. Today, American homeowners are sitting on a record amount of home equity. That's the part of your home you own outright. The value you can tap to fund other life goals. In fact, the average Rocket Mortgage homeowner has about $170,000 in untapped equity available now. Rocket Mortgage can help you understand what home equity is and how to use it wisely for what matters to you. They've made it easier than ever to turn your home equity into cash with Rocket Mortgage. So now the home you worked so hard for can work hard for you in plenty of different ways. HomeEquity can help you fund a home renovation, pay for your kid's college tuition, or pay off and consolidate high interest debt from credit cards. To learn more, just call 804Rocket or visit Rocket.com today. Rocket Mortgage LLC licensed in 50 states nmlsconsumeraccess.org 3030 $178,000 average equity is based on internal Rocket Mortgage servicing date.

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[Holly Fry]

Listen to your elders, honey. You might know them from their viral videos. But now the old gays pull back the curtain on their brand new podcast SIL Silver Linings with the old Gays brought to you in partnership with iHeart's Ruby Studio and Veeve Healthcare, with over 300 years of experience between them, hosts Robert, Mick, Bill and Jesse serve four lifetimes of wisdom when it comes to love, sex, community and whatever else they've got on the gay Agenda. Listen in to these fabulous friends swap stories exploring how queer life has evolved over the decades and the silver linings they've collected along the way. Each episode dives into hot topics, from safe sex and online dating to untangling Gen Z lingo, as well as insights on how music, art and fashion show up in queer culture. So check out Silver Linings, a show about how pride ages like fine wine, available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

We mentioned two of the people who were heavily involved in the design of the Blue Ridge Parkway earlier, Stanley L. Abbott and R. Getty Browning. Browning was a federal parkway engineer whose maps of the area and the suggested route became a big part of the parkway planning. Abbott was named resident landscape architect and the acting superintendent of the Parkway in early 1937. Abbott took some inspiration from Skyline Drive in Shenandoah national park, which was also one of the general inspirations for the Blue Ridge. He also took inspiration from the work of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who is sometimes called the father of American landscape architecture.

[Holly Fry]

Abbott and the other landscape architects who worked on the Parkway described wanting to fit the road into the mountains as if nature had put it there. From above it would look like a ribbon curving through the landscape. This also applied to the view from the road. He was a big proponent of the scenic easements that we mentioned earlier.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Abbott also developed a visual approach to the parkway that emphasized preserving and conserving the land and its history while also keeping a managed landscape in mind for the future. Sort of like Skyline Drive, this is a thing where you look out from the Parkway and it looks like it has always been that way and is in its natural state, but it's really a managed view that people are seeing. The construction also had a lot of similarities to Skyline Drive, including using local stone for bridges and tunnels and focusing on native plants in view of the Parkway. Lots of other roads cross under the Parkway, and these bridges for the Parkway were often built from local stone with a very similar rustic look. This also applied to things like retaining walls, bridges and tunnels to be built along the parkway itself.

[Holly Fry]

45 different construction units were involved in building the Parkway in the late 1930s, as was the case with Skyline Drive. Private contractors were involved, but much of the labor was paid for by Depression era relief Programs, including the Works Progress Administration, the Emergency Relief Administration, and the Civilian Conservation Corps. There were four CCC units that worked on the parkway, and one of them, the Galax Virginia Camp, was for black men. The CCC didn't build the road itself, but was focused on things like overlooks and amenities, as well as grading slopes and planting trees and other plants.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

While Skyline Drive and Shenandoah national park were both open by the late 1930s, the Blue Ridge Parkway was a lot longer and a lot more complex. A stretch of about 20 miles in North Carolina near the Virginia border was open and ready for travel by 1939. And by the time the United States became involved In World War II, about 150 miles were complete and the first concessions had opened to the public. Like Shenandoah national park, there wasn't an overall racial segregation policy for the park, but the initial plans had involved the construction of segregated facilities. Only some of those facilities had been built by the time the war started.

[Holly Fry]

New construction work on the parkway had been suspended entirely during the war, and three camps of conscientious objectors from the civilian public service worked to maintain what was already done or in progress. Most of the sections that had opened were not widely used during the war due to shortages of rubber and fuel and a ban on driving for leisure.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

When construction resumed after the war, it was without building any new segregated facilities. But the parkway did still exist within the racial attitudes of the areas that it was passing through. To be clear, though, those communities were not exclusively white. The parkway passes through areas that are home to Melungeons, which are a multiracial ethnic group in the Appalachian Mountains. That's a term that started out as a slur but was later reclaimed. The parkway also passed through a number of black communities, some of them dating back to before the Civil War. And some of the land that was acquired for the parkway was acquired from black families, including the Saunders family, who had a farm near Peaks of Otter, Virginia, which they sold to the government in in 1942. There's also a cemetery at Meadows of Dan Baptist church at milepost 177 that's believed to be a slave cemetery.

[Holly Fry]

We also talked about the southern end of the parkway running through Cherokee lands in the Koala boundary. Earlier in the episode. After the war, construction on the parkway was also a lot slower. There was no longer the same sense of urgency about job creation that had propelled the earlier work on the parkway. And most of the Depression era relief programs that had been paying for labor.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Had already ended in 1950. 6. The National Park Service launched a 10 year project called Mission 66, which was a plan to expand the Park Service handle a lot of badly needed maintenance and finish projects that had been languishing, including the Blue Ridge Parkway, which still was not done. And by the end of Mission 66, only 7.7 miles of the parkway were still unfinished.

[Holly Fry]

That last 7.7 miles included the stretch around Grandfather Mountain, which we mentioned before the break as being in dispute for decades. The National Park Service and Hugh Morton finally reached an agreement in the 1970s. A lot of the descriptions of this agreement make it sound as though Morton's approval required the National Park Service to build a viaduct around the side of the Grandfather Mountain to protect the ecosystem. But a viaduct had really been part of the plan. Since parkway planners had decided to pursue a higher elevation route than the one that Morton's grandfather had originally approved.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The Lynn Cove viaduct around Grandfather Mountain was for the time an engineering marvel. It's made of 153 pre cast concrete segments, each of them unique. They are held up by piers that were cast on site. The bridge itself was the only approach to the construction site, and heavy machinery would have damaged the landscape. So all of the work was done from above, with equipment being brought in by helicopter and the segments placed one at a time by a crane that moved along the viaduct as it was building it. This 1,250foot viaduct was finished in 1983 and cost almost $10 million. And it earned eight different professional awards, including the 1984 Presidential Award for Design Excellence. Side note, Hugh morton died in 2006, and two years later, the Morton family sold part of their land to the state of North Carolina. It is now Grandfather Mountain State Park.

[Holly Fry]

The roadways connecting the viaduct to the rest of the parkway on either side were finished in 1987, at which point the entire 469 miles were open for public travel. This project had taken more than 50 years to complete over the course of its construction. It also served as a training ground for engineers for essentially a generation. About 10% of the engineers at the U.S. bureau of Public Roads later the Federal Highway Administration went through part of their training working on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

When the parkway was first proposed as a connection between Shenandoah national park and Great Smoky Mountains National park park, the assumption was that a lot of people would be using it to travel from one park to the other. But by the time the parkway was mostly finished in 1966, there were way more options to do that, thanks to the Interstate Highway System spearheaded under the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and many other road building projects. When the parkway is fully open, which currently it is not, it takes at least 10 or 12 hours to drive from one end to the other. And that's without really stopping to eat or go to the bathroom or, you know, look at anything. Some people do the whole thing as more of a five or six day road trip with stops and sightseeing. But if your goal is just to get from one of those parks to the other, today there are highway routes that take more like five or six hours, as long as you don't run into a lot of traffic problems.

[Holly Fry]

Even before the Lynn Cove Viaduct was finished, the Blue Ridge Parkway had become one of the most popular parts of the national park system, surpassing Shenandoah national park as the visited national park in the US and it definitely brought a surge of tourism to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and Virginia. According to the National Park Service, when it's fully open, the parkway creates $1.3 billion in economic benefits annually and it supports almost 18,000 jobs. Obviously, though, those communities relationships with tourism are very complicated.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The parkway has also faced other challenges. Although its original planners were focused on the preservation of native ecosystems and replanting native species along the parkway, there's some evidence suggesting that the parkway and its human and vehicle traffic have made it easier for non native species and pathogens to really spread through the area. This includes plants like Oriental bittersweet and Floribunda rose, which can could out compete other plants and insects like emerald ash borer and hemlock woolly adelgid. And of course, there are issues like air pollution and runoff from roads and parking lots that would not be there without the parkway.

[Holly Fry]

And the reason that we keep saying when it's fully open when talking about the road is that Hurricane Helene did immense damage to the Blue Ridge Parkway, including downing tens of thousands of trees, causing landslides that buried or undercut the roadway, and washing out parts of the road through flooding. The entire parkway had to be closed immediately after the storm, and more than 150 miles of it are still closed as of the end of May 2025. These closed sections are all in North Carolina. The Virginia section is open apart from some road work unrelated to Helene, and the Roanoke Mountain Loop, which has been closed since a landslide in 2018 that was caused by the remnants of Hurricane Michael.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

There has been some funding allocated to repairing all of this immense destruction, including disaster relief funding allocated by Congress and funds from the Federal highway administration. This includes $32.6 million in funding to be split between the US Forest Service and the National Park Service for post helene repairs to the Parkway Way. But this will probably be a many, many years long recovery process, especially since the National Park Service and other federal agencies have already been faced with budget cuts and layoffs under the Trump administration. There's a massive reduction in force plan for the National Park Service that, as of this moment that we're recording, still seems to be tentative, not fully clear exactly how damaging the impact will be for all of them that that's the.

[Holly Fry]

Blue Ridge Parkway do you have listener mail?

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I do. I have listener mail from Maeve and this is about a little bit of an older episode, but we ran it as a Saturday Classic last year. The subject line is Longtime listener and the subject of Bees. Hi Holly and Tracy. I hope you are both doing well. I'm a longtime listener since about 2015 and first time writer. I was recently listening to the Saturday Classic on beekeeping and some of your discussion of the bees themselves prompted me to chime in with my own experience. I thought you may like hearing more about the state or research for bees nowadays. While I can't speak for every state, I spent the better part of a year surveying bee species in central Louisiana as an undergraduate, research under my college's entomologist who has a fondness for them. Biology, and especially entomology are interesting fields because despite how long humans have observed the natural world, there is still a lot we don't know. Part of the issue is the disbalanced ratio of entomologists to insects. There are so, so many insects that most entomologists focus entirely on a select few groups, or even just one group. There's also a severe lack of funding for biological sciences in general, but I'm sure you could have guessed that yourselves. I was faced with that unknown in a very real way when I started doing research for my proposal for the survey finding and found next to no prior research on bees in the state outside of two heavily populated areas. So when you mentioned the Africanized honeybees, I found it a bit amusing because while it is entirely possible that they're in Louisiana, we have no idea. Even my studies barely scratch the surface of the species present, though there is a bigger project looking into it right now that I'm not part of. Like you said, though, honeybees have varying effects depending on the conditions they are in. On the green of our campus last spring we did not find a single bee that was not the European honeybee or Eastern carpenter bee on the other hand, in the few times we collected in a prairie with only native forage, we didn't find a single one. Just as well. The physical differences between the Africanized bees and normal honeybees is so minor that it would likely be overlooked entirely unless one was specifically looking for it or had familiarity with them them. There were even times we got the bees that matched none of the resources we had available, but due to the complicated nature of DNA testing such a small organism, we didn't have much luck figuring out what they were past their family. I'd also like to mention for bee lovers, you might like to check out the Xerxes Society and Official Pollinator Gardens. You're likely to find many lovely places you can support in some way and go observe bees and other pollinators like butterflies, beetles and moths. I love your podcasts and everything you guys do and have been listening since shortly after both of you were on as hosts. When I first listened, I was in a dark place in my life and hearing the two of you helped me feel human again and less lonely. Your podcast has gotten me through a lot of hard times. Nowadays I have a lot a long commute and a lot of time where I do tedious lab work, so having you guys to listen to is one of my favorite ways to spend the time. Even subjects I don't think will be interesting at first always end up intriguing me once I start the episode. Maeve goes on to say that as a longtime lover of coelacanth, the episode on Marjorie Courtney Lattery was a favorite, and there are also some suggestions for future episodes. And we have some pet tacts with a dachshund named Fenrir who is called Finny, a lab mix sissy, an orange cat named Nubby, a fuzz muffin Teddy who likes to shed over everybody, and a mandatory alligator picture. And then Maeve apologizes for being wordy. You do not need to apologize. This was a lovely email with a lot of very awesome pet pictures. All of these animals are very, very cute. I'm gonna click until I get to the alligator one.

[Holly Fry]

I love an alligator.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, I don't think the alligator is anyone's pet. It is just out in the wild. I mean, I say that as though it was likely. It's not anyone's pet. Obviously it is an alligator in the wild just hanging out by the edge of the water. Thank you so much for this email. I like bees a lot and so getting to return to the beekeeping episode, even though it was a bit ago, is lovely. If you'd like to send us a note about this or any other podcast, we're at history [e-mail] and you can subscribe to our show on the iheartradio app or anywhere else you like to get your podcasts. Stuff youf Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. And here we have a specimen from the early 2000s, a legacy investing platform. Please don't touch the exhibit folks.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway now through June 24th. Score hot summer savings and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags on items like General Mills cereal, Chobani Greek yogurt, Pillsbury Crescent rolls, cinnamon rolls and biscuits. Biscuits Haagen Dazs ice cream, Lindor chocolate truffles, Tillamook ice cream and Cove Probiotic sodas. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Shop in store or online for easy drive up and go pickup or delivery subject to availability restrictions apply. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details. We finally switched to T Mobile because with them we can be connected here and there. Dad, the cousins in Mexico have a.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Surprise for you.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

See details@t mobile.com this is an iHeart podcast.