A site about the 469-mile Blue Ridge Parkway: where the road runs, how it was built, and the rules that keep it looking like this.
About
The Blue Ridge Parkway runs 469 miles between Shenandoah National Park and the Great Smoky Mountains. This site is about how it got there.
Construction began in 1935 and the road was not continuous until 1987, when the Linn Cove Viaduct closed the last gap around Grandfather Mountain. Twenty-one pages here deal with the routing, the fifty-two years of building, the design rules that still govern what can be seen from the shoulder, the music of the country it passes through, and the milepost system that names every point on it.
Mileposts and elevations are given as published by the National Park Service. Photographs are credited beneath each figure.