Blue Ridge Parkway 751935 · 1987 · milepost 304

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.

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Section 2 / The Build

Fifty-two years of construction

Public works, camps, masons and the last gap.

Long barracks-style buildings and parked vehicles in a valley construction camp surrounded by hills

Begun as public worksConstruction began in 1935 as a Depression-era public-works project, which set both the labour supply and the political pressure to keep it moving.
Italian and Spanish stonework, still standingImmigrant stonemasons faced the culverts, parapets and tunnel portals, and their work is the most visible surviving craft on the road.
The last gap, built from the top downThe Linn Cove Viaduct opened in 1987 as a segmental concrete bridge built without a haul road below, specifically so Grandfather Mountain would not be cut.
Who actually did the workCivilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration camps supplied much of the labour, and the camp locations track the construction sequence.
A route that had to be argued overThe alignment through western North Carolina was disputed for years, including with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and the final line reflects that.

In this section

A weathered wooden ladder rests against a low stone wall in a grassy clearing — Italian and Spanish stonework, still standing

A vintage red car drives along the curving Linn Cove Viaduct amid autumn foliage — The last gap, built from the top down

Vintage touring cars parked in a row at a mountainside camp with tents — Who actually did the work

A weathered stone boundary marker embedded in leaf-strewn ground near a wooded slope — A route that had to be argued over

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.

1935 · 1987 · milepost 304

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