Crowning achievement. The Linn Cove Viaduct was completed in 1987.

It was a combination of the economic dreams of older men and the energetic visions of younger men that put the building of the Blue Ridge Parkway into motion back in the Great Depression. Here, from one of the premier historians of the "ribbon of highway," is a perspective on the first 60 years.

TEXT BY HARLEY E. JOLLEY AND PHOTO BY HUGH MORTON

The coming of the Great Depression laid the foundations for its generation to dream dreams and see visions. And, as strange as it may seem, one of the magnificent by-products was the Blue Ridge Parkway, now celebrating its 60th anniversary.

By the early 1930s millions of unemployed Americans were plagued by all the evils which accompany unrelenting economic depressions. To alleviate that suffering, old political men conjured up dreams of antidotes. Aided by the vision of talented young landscape architects, they devised a make-work program which would utilize $16 million of federal relief money to build a scenic highway connecting the newly established Shenandoah National Park and its twin sister, the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. The project was to employ thousands of needy mountaineers for a period of two years, with Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee sharing mileage. And recent New Deal legislation had provided funds for relief projects such as "construction of park ways."

Previous dreamers had, just prior to World War I, proposed a privately constructed toll road called "Crest of the Blue Ridge Highway," running from near Wytheville, Va. to near Atlanta, Ga. That dream failed but another emerged in New York City which was to shape the destiny of what is now the Blue Ridge Parkway: The Westchester County (New York) Park System pioneered an urban renewal program which also incorporated elaborate, wonderfully designed parks, beaches, golf courses and parkways.

But in the meantime, by September 1933, rumors of a federal highway through the Appalachian Blue Ridge country launched a whole new set of dreams. Asheville, in western North Carolina, and Knoxville, in eastern  Tennessee, became political dynamos supporting the proposed road, realizing that it would funnel thousands of travelers and millions of dollars into any city hosting it.

Their eagerness to be that host sparked one of the most intense lobbying efforts the Blue Ridge Mountains had ever seen.

The final decision was left up to Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior and administrator of relief funds. After intense consideration he, to the great dismay of Tennessee, sided with North Carolina, establishing the route now traveled, stipulating that if North Carolina and Virginia would purchase and donate the right of way, the federal government would build and maintain a parkway under the auspices of the National Park Service.

This insured that another visionary's guidelines would be utilized to construct the parkway. When the first national park, Yellowstone, was being developed, its roads administrator issued a three point decree saying "A proper road should:

1. lie easily on the ground

2. blend harmoniously with the topography

3. appear as if it had grown out of the soil."

Drawing repeatedly upon lessons learned in Westchester County, and using numerous landscape architects recruited from that project, he designed not only a parkway but a total recreation program, incorporating visitor centers, hiking trails, lodges, campgrounds, milepost markers, interpretive programs, visitor services and lodges into a series of "parks" interspersed strategically along the route. For those parks Abbott decreed that, "they must possess versatility and beauty - like beads on a string they must become the rare gems in the necklace."

Many "dreamers" played roles in initiating and developing the parkway. Virginia's Senator Harry F. Byrd provided the catalytic energy which launched the idea. North Carolina's Congressman Robert L. Doughton made the parkway his special concern and for years secured the funding which eventually built the parkway despite the objections of numerous politicians, including the northerner who ridiculed the parkway as a boondoggle, "a most visionary thing." And among the visionaries, North Carolina's chief right-of-way engineer, R. Betty Browning, was one of the brightest. He is generally credited with convincing Ickes that the North Carolina route was the "proper road."

In reality, however, many dreamers and visionaries have for 60 years provided the impetus initiating, designing and building the parkway. Little did the original dreamers realize that it would take 50 years from the time the first construction shovel dug in, September 11, 1935, to complete their "two-year" project. But despite some first-class brouhahas over route selections, section by section the great scenic road was completed, with the famed Linn Cove Viaduct providing the final link. Truly, as an Indian preacher said in his prayer of dedication for the Cherokee section, this "is a road of peace" and we joyfully celebrate its 60th anniversary, with appreciative thanks to its many dreamers and visionaries.