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After a visit to the Skyline Drive construction site, the newly-elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed with Virginia’s Senator Harry Flood Byrd that the new road should have an addition which would connect the Shenandoah National Park to the new Great Smoky Mountains National Park located several hundred miles away. Federal monies were appropriated and construction began on September 11, 1935. (This means that the Parkway is now celebrating its 75th birthday. To commemorate this anniversary, the folks in both Virginia and North Carolina are throwing a year-long birthday party with special exhibits and lots of local festivals–all of which make it an excellent time to visit the area.) The resulting road, which was not finished for many decades due to World War II, funding hurdles, and the sheer difficulty of laying a path across very rugged terrain, includes 216.9 miles of territory in Virginia. Along that stretch, visitors find everything from a re-created pioneer farm settlement at Humpback Rocks and the picturesque wheelhouse at Mabry Mill to the reflecting waters of Sherando Lake and endless views from overlooks bearing such daunting names as Devil’s Backbone and Purgatory. And unlike Skyline Drive to the north, the Blue Ridge Parkway is not inside a national park and therefore rolls through communities both large and small. These towns and villages are chock-a-block with interesting sites, such as the old canal locks next to the James River Visitor Center and the surprisingly gothic edifice of Syon Abbey, which is home to an order of Benedictine monks.
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