North Carolina’s most famous highway took 54 years to build. Completed in 1987, the entire road eventually encompassed 469 miles from end to end, connecting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park with the Shenandoah National Park with one long, scenic journey. As children, most North Carolinians made at least some family journeys on the parkway, trips that left indelible impressions on our hearts and souls. We’ve compiled some amazing photos of the construction and very early years of the Blue Ridge Parkway below. Most of these images were probably taken long before those vacations, but the look back should bring forth a bit of nostalgia just the same. Enjoy!
1. Contractors working in Alleghany County during the parkway's construction in 1935.
3. Rough Ridge Tunnel at MP 349, in 1940. In the early days, travelers were informed that driving on the parkway would be at their own risk. This photo was taken shortly after construction began.
5. While Mother Nature deserves much credit for the stunning scenery along the parkway, landscaping was part of the original plan. Here, workers are planting trees along a new section of road in the late 1930s.
7. The Parkway is famous for having been designed to impact the environment in the least invasive way. But when necessary, explosives were used. The location along the parkway where this photo was taken is unknown and the date is approximately 1936-37.
9. Some workers for the Civilian Conservation Corps traveled great distances to work on the project. The photo below shows a migrating camp for workers with a new section of roadway immediately in the foreground. Date and location unknown.
10. Some scenery along the parkway, such as a road climbing to the top of an incline with a stone overpass on the summit, became a common sight along the 469 miles of highway. Date and location unknown.
11. It took 54 years to complete the Blue Ridge Parkway, and while sections were open early on due to fairly easy engineering, other parts took decades. The final section of the parkway was completed in 1987. The location and date for the image below is unknown.
