National Park Service: Highways in Harmony (Skyline Drive: Shenandoah National Park)

Shenandoah National Park
SKYLINE DRIVE
Virginia

A PARK FOR THE AUTOMOBILE TOURIST

Skyline Drive was among the first mountain road building projects undertaken by the NPS in the East. The concept of a scenic ridge drive was suggested by the Southern Appalachian National Park Committee in 1924, when it noted that "the greatest single feature [of the proposed park] . . . is a possible sky-line drive along the mountain top, following a continuous ridge and looking down westerly on the Shenandoah Valley . . . and also commanding a View of the Piedmont Plain stretching easterly to the Washington Monument."

The committee recognized the proliferation of the automobile and its increasing use as a recreational vehicle. By 1929, over 23 million passenger cars were registered in the U.S., making the automobile one of the most significant social and technological changes of the period. Federal, state and local officials realized that the proposed Shenandoah National Park would, by necessity, be a park for the automobile tourist. As Charles E. Peterson, head of the NPS Eastern Division, Branch of Plans and Design in the 1930s, recalled, "[t]he overall idea was that motorists should be able to drive out of Washington for a Sunday's mountain experience and get back home by night."

This earth fill on the roadway near Panorama utilized a cribbing of American chestnut logs to support the road shoulder and masonry guard walls. The deteriorated cribbing was removed during the drive's rehabilitation begun in 1983. —Len Harris, Shenandoah National Park, 1933

"The wall being built now is the best that has been turned out by the Bureau of Public Roads so far. Drills, Compressed air, and a Crane are on the job as the wall is put up. As a result, the Cost is less, larger rock are placed in the wall, and less waste of time and stone encountered."

—Harvey Benson, Resident Landscape, Architect, Shenandoah National Park

Construction of Skyline Drive predated the dedication of the park by five years. Work began in 1931, when President Hoover (a staunch advocate of the road) authorized drought relief funds to finance the task. From 1933 until its completion in 1939, the job continued as a Depression Era work relief project under the Roosevelt Administration's New Deal. President Roosevelt followed the progress in Shenandoah as avidly as his predecessor had, ensuring that the Public Works Administration (PWA), Works Progress Administration (WPA), and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) allocated funds and manpower for construction, beautification, and development of the road and park.

The Dickey Ridge Visitor Center is typical of the rustic "parkitecture" built in Shenandoah and other national parks in the 1930s. Erected by the park concessionaire in 1938, it served as a dining hail for a tourist cabin development. Closed during WWII and never reopened, it was converted into a visitor's center in 1958. —Robert Harvey, HAER, 1996

Skyline Drive was an instant success. Each of the road's three sections opened—in 1934 (Central District), 1936 (North District) and 1939 (South District)—to enormous numbers of motorists.

As a result of the drive's poplarity, newly established Shenandoah led all National Park units in yearly visitation by 1937, becoming the first national park to attract one million visitors.

| next | back | stop |