Super-Scenic Motorway

Author Q&A

Q: What inspired you to write the history of the Blue Ridge Parkway?
A: I came to love the NorthCarolina mountains the summer I turned 10, when my family spent sixweeks at Lake Junaluska United Methodist Assembly, near Waynesville.When I returned to Junaluska to work during my college years in the late1980s, I rediscovered the Parkway. Later, when I was becoming aprofessional historian, I realized the Parkway had a fascinating andcomplicated history that had never been written—partly, it seemed,because no one thought there was much to say beyond a few anecdotesabout design and construction. When I learned that the Eastern Cherokeeshad fought the Parkway construction for five years in the 1930s, I knewthere was more to the story, and I set out to write about the Parkway'scomplicated past.

Q: What were some of the highlights of your fifteen years of research on the Parkway?
A: There are several, but one waswhen I began my research in the Parkway's Asheville archive, when it washoused in an abandoned Veteran's Administration hospital dormitory.There was no electricity and no archival staff. I read by the windowlight and later took notes on a laptop computer connected to an AC/DCconverter hooked to my car's cigarette lighter. Another memorable momentwas when I was driven up the steep and curvy Grandfather Mountain roadin a monsoon rain by then-eighty-three-year-old mountain owner HughMorton, who insisted on stopping the car to get out and take photographsof the cascading water.

Q: While doing your research, did you at first intend to challenge the myths and beliefs that surrounded the making of the Parkway or did your exploration lead you there?
A: When I started, I believed manyof the myths! The first book about the Parkway's history I read wasHarley Jolley's The Blue Ridge Parkway, which primarily popularized themythical history. Until I got into the archives, I had no reason tothink that much of what he wrote was misleadingly simple. The key for mewas to have a direct encounter with the historical documents—to let thevoices of the past speak to me. If following those voices has meantoverturning myths, it is only because I have sought to be as true as Ican be to the history.

Q: Why do you think the popular myth of the ParkwayÑthat it "was miraculously laid on the land"—has flourished while the actual history is virtually unknown?
A: I think this has happenedlargely because the myth appears to fit what people see, and want tosee, when they travel the Parkway. The Parkway is a carefully designedlandscape that presents a very controlled, picturesque scene. Behindthat scene are complicated, messy, sometimes not-very-pretty storiesabout what was there before and how the Parkway came to be. Over theyears the traces of those stories on the landscape have been all butwiped away by the National Park Service. When most people see whatremainsÑthe peaceful, apparently undisturbed natural landscape with afew rough-hewn buildings—they have trouble imagining that the Parkway'screation was not easy. Additionally, most Parkway history has beenwritten either by people within the National Park Service or by peoplewith backgrounds in landscape architecture. These studies have tended tofocus on the Parkway's design, neglecting other equally importantpeople, perspectives, and forces. Hence, almost no one has revisited thehistorical documents to see what they actually say. I myself wassurprised by the conflicted stories they revealed.

Q: What's the story behind the title, Super-Scenic Motorway?
A: The title comes from an articlewritten by early Parkway designer Stanley W. Abbott for a 1941 travelbooklet called the Eastern National Park-to-Park Annual and The BlueRidge Parkway Guide: "The Blue Ridge Parkway: 500-mile Super-ScenicMotorway: A New Element in Recreational Planning within Day's Drive of60,000,000 People." Although I found the article very early in myresearch, I rediscovered it when the book was nearly finished. I wascaptivated by the simple-but-catchy descriptiveness of "Super-ScenicMotorway," and was pleased to reuse a phrase that dated from theParkway's early development.

Q: There are a number of photos in your book, many of historical significance. How did you decide which to include? Do you have a favorite?
A: Since my book does explore theParkway's history and is not another coffee table book or travel guide,I wanted to try to do something different with my photographs. I triedto include images that sharpened the stories told in the book. One of myfavorites depicts the early timbering of Grandfather Mountain, whileanother clearly shows the relationship of the Parkway to the road thattakes visitors to the privately owned Mile-High Swinging Bridge at themountain's peak. These two images—which I spent monthsseeking—contradict a popular myth about the mountain's history and weredifficult to locate. The mountain's owner would not release an earlypostcard he had published showing the road to the Bridge, and ParkService staff members did not believe they had any Grandfather Mountainphotographs. It was exciting to find them in the Parkway headquarters afew weeks before the manuscript went into production.

Q: You note that there are several unresolved issues surrounding the Parkway that you do not expand on in the book. How did you narrow your focus?
A: For every episode I examined indetail, there were many others I could have looked into. The archivalrecord of the Parkway is massive and spread over more than 20repositories. In order to finish this book in my lifetime, I could nottalk about every interesting story. So I selected a few that allowed meto cover the major social and cultural issues: the Parkway's origins andcontext, land acquisition and use, and relationships between theexisting private tourist industry and neighboring landowners. The casesI chose were well documented and important, offered new insights intoParkway history, and contained vivid personalities and interestingstories.

Q: What do you hope your readers will take away from your findings? Do you hope to encourage activism on behalf of the Parkway?
A: I hope that readers willunderstand that creating the Parkway is an ongoing process in which theyplay key roles. History is happening now. The Parkway did not emerge ina magical time where there were no conflicts and no hard decisions to bemade. Rather, it exists because people in the past—people very much likeus—made difficult decisions to do some things and not to do others. Inorder to assure the continued viability of the Parkway, we have to dothe same. To the degree that readers see this, I hope they will becomeactivists on the Parkway's behalf. The road is in serious danger atpresent. It is faced with funding shortfalls, encroaching development,visitor demands, and maintenance backlogs. If we don't make activedecisions now to protect the Parkway, to re-create our Parkway, therewon't be a Parkway in another 75 years.

Q: If the Blue Ridge Parkway has more visitors than Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon combined, why do you think it is struggling for funding and employees?
A: Funding of individual parkswithin the Park Service depends on land base under management,visitation statistics, physical plant expenses, cultural and naturalresources in each park, political pressures, public perception ofresource values, among other factors. The critical problem for theParkway, and all national parks, is the serious and prolongedunderfunding of the entire National Park Service, likely to worsen withrecent orders to cut park budgets. National parks across the country arestruggling in the same ways that the Parkway is. The key is to increasefunding for all our national parks to the level that is needed topreserve and enhance this vital public legacy.

Q: The Parkway has a very rich history. What do you think is the best way to renovate and maintain it but also to preserve its past?
A: Most important to understandhere is that past and present form an unbroken continuum of which we area part. For the past 75 years, the Parkway has been a work in progress,an evolving landscape shaped and reshaped by many hands. There is no"pure" Parkway to be preserved. To maintain the Blue Ridge Parkway foranother 75 years, we need to see ourselves as the road's creators. Inthat effort, some key principles must be borne in mind that have alwayscharacterized this free public road built and supported for the publicgood with public funds: a wide, protective right-of-way, limited accessfrom adjoining properties, and services to please travelers rather thancommercial interests. Continuing to have a Parkway built on theseprinciples has required making difficult decisions that, at some points,have made some people unhappy. In order to maintain this Parkway, wewill be required to make some of those choices, too.

Q: Do you have any suggestions for lovers of the Parkway who want to aid in its survival?
A: Lobby your congressmen andwomen to increase funding for the National Park Service, and, moregenerally, to restore funding for our public services andinfrastructure, all of which are seriously underfunded and threatened.In North Carolina and Virginia, push your state legislatures to seekways to funnel monies to the Parkway. At the same time, work to resistthe national mood that asserts that government cannot do anything right.Donate money to private, nonprofit organizations that support theParkway, such as the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, Friends of the BlueRidge Parkway, and the Conservation Trust for North Carolina.

Q: What's your next project?
A: My husband, David Whisnant, andI have recently begun a historical study of the DeSoto NationalMemorial, a sixty-year-old National Park Service site in Bradenton,Florida, that commemorates the 16th century North American expedition ofSpanish conquistador Hernando DeSoto. Under contract with NPS, we arewriting the memorial's administrative history, an internal planningdocument that will help staff manage the park. We hope this will be thefirst of many applied historical research projects, which use history toinfluence policy, that we will do under the umbrella of our recentlylaunched consulting firm, Primary Source History Services.