A Fascinating Story at 75: The Blue Ridge Parkway-- Part 2

On Nov. 24, 1933, Interior Secretary Harold Ickes approved the "Park-to-Park Highway" as a Public Works Project.

The budget for the project was set at $16 million and New York landscape architect Stanley Abbott was hired to design it. He had a vision of a chain of parks and recreational areas with lots of viewing vistas.

Alignment of the road was chosen to start with the Blowing Rock, North Carolina, highway, over the Unaka Mountains into Tennessee where it connected with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

There was a great controversy about this choice as Asheville, NC, was facing extremely tough times due to the Great Depression and began an intense campaign to change it. They hired FDR's close friend Josehus Daniels, Ambassador to Mexico, to sway the administration to an Asheville Route and this one won out.

Construction began Sept. 11, 1935, near Cumberland Knob, NC.

I have never driven but maybe a mile of it in the past, but this being the 75th anniversary of its beginning, I'd like to check it out.

Sure Hope to Drive It This Summer If I Can Afford the Gas. --RoadDog