BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY TIMELINE OF DEVELOPMENTS
1906		"The Crest of the Blue Ridge Highway" proposed; work on this private toll toad gets underway in 1914, but is halted by World War I.
January 1933		Franklin Delano Roosevelt inaugurated President at the height of the Great Depression.
August 1933		Roosevelt approves plan for an "Appalachina Scenic Highway" to connect Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountains national parks.
December 1933		Project turned over to the National Park Service; Stanley Abbott appointed acting superintendenet.
1934		The "War Between The States" results in a decision to route the southern portion of the parkway through North Carolina; no route through Tennessee.
September 1935		Construction begins near Cumberland Gap Knob in North Carolina.
June 1936		The project is named "The Blue Ridge Parkway."
1941		Construction suspended due to outbreak of war; 170 miles of parkway is now complete; 300 more remain unfinished.
1946		Work resumes after war, but tight appropriations limit the pace of construction.
1956-66		NPS "Mission 66 development program pushes work towards completion; at the end of a project, only 7.7 miles remain unfinished.
1983		Construction of the Linn Cove Viaduct along Grandfather Mountain closes the "missing link".
September 1987		The entire 469.9 mile parkway is open for travel.
1996-97		Historic American Engineering Record documents the parkway.

Parkway sweeping through Carolina rhododendron at Craggy Gardens, NC. Parkway entrance sign, inset, 1940.

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