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Parkway opened 70 years ago in Wilkes area
by Jule Hubbard
(Photo caption) Works Progress Administration workers build an outdoor grill at Bluffs Park (later renamed Doughton Park) in the late 1930s.
Seventy years ago this past August, all 60 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway in Wilkes, Ashe and Alleghany counties were opened to traffic.
This section and a 50-mile section in Virginia (south of Roanoke, Va.) were the first portions of the scenic highway to open.
Blacktop paving of about 22 miles of the Parkway from Bluff Park near Laurel Springs to Glendale Springs started in early June 1939, with R.B. Tyler Construction Co. as the contractor, according to an article in the June 1, 1939, issue of The Journal-Patriot. Bluff Park was later named Doughton Park in honor of U.S. Congressman Robert Doughton of Laurel Springs, a strong Parkway proponent.
"Top surface" paving was applied to most of this section a year earlier, but a portion near Glendale Springs collapsed and had to be resurfaced.
Construction of a 16-mile link of the Parkway from Deep Gap to Blowing Rock began in the summer of 1939. Work on the Parkway south of Blowing Rock was under way by June 1, the newspaper reported.
The April 20,1939, issue of the newspaper reported that President Roosevelt had approved extending the Parkway to Stone Mountain in northern Georgia. These plans never came to fruition.
An article in the July 17, 1939 issue of The Journal-Patriot reported on development of Bluff Park, encompassing about 7,000 acres in Wilkes and Alleghany counties. The park was scheduled to be ready for use when the first 60 miles of the Parkway were opened to traffic, the newspaper reported.
The article said 200 to 350 men hired through the Works Progress Administration were engaged in projects within the park for two years before it opened.
The July 17, 1939, newspaper article stated that picnic facilities, a campground, parking areas and a water supply reservoir had had been completed, with water from six mountain springs filling the reservoir.
Pipe from the reservoir was extended in two directions, one going to a large storage tank and other to the site of a proposed lodge near Wildcat Rock. It was later completed and named Bluff Lodge.
The article said 25 miles of trail for horseback riding had been established and that there were tentative plans for stables. Also planned was a lake on Basin Creek in the Wilkes portion of the park. The lake and the stables were never built.
"The park contains such interesting places as the Ice Rocks, where the Parkway was literally blasted along the side of a precipice and from a distance looks like a ledge on the mountain. The mountain above and below the roadway is almost perpendicular…," the article stated.
The Oct. 23, 1939, issue of The Journal-Patriot reported that traffic on the Parkway the previous weekend was the heaviest yet as people came out to see the colorful fall foliage.
The article said Civilian Conservation Camp workers from the CCC camp near Laurel Springs were still engaged in building walls, landscaping and other work along the Parkway.
The first dirt was turned for the Parkway on Pack Murphy's farm in Alleghany County, just south of the Virginia line, on Sept. 11, 1935.
The Journal-Patriot's front page stories in 1936 and 1937 reported a steady rise in employment for area people on the Parkway. The newspaper's April 23, 1936, issue declared, "To use 1,500 on scenic parkway in summer."
All of the local Parkway news wasn't positive.
According to an article in the June 4, 1939, issue, 20 lawsuits were filed in Ashe County by people seeking additional compensation for land taken for construction of the Parkway. In the suits, landowners claimed they weren't paid enough money and that remaining portions of their property were damaged.
Between $1,000 and $20,000 were sought per case for a total exceeding $100,000.
In one case, Joyce Myers claimed that 14 acres of good bottomland and 13 acres of cutover timberland on her farm in Laurel Springs were taken from her for the Parkway and that another section of her farm was made inaccessible.
Miss Myers sued for $20,000. Joe Hampton (former Ashe sheriff), John Goss and Hort Miller testified on behalf of Miss Myers.
The article reported that a jury awarded $3,000 in damages in the Sam J. Miller case that week. Miller sued for $20,000, based on the claim that his 200-acre farm in Glendale Springs was damaged by the Parkway when 31 acres, a small dwelling and a barn were taken.
The jury listed Miller's damages at $5,000 and benefits at $2,000, leaving a net of $3,000. |
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