Blue Ridge Parkway [Paperback]

Harley E. Jolley (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 186 pages
• Publisher: Univ Tennessee Press; 1 edition (May 31, 1969)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0870491008
• ISBN-13: 978-0870491009
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,809,632 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An older but still worthwhile history of the Blue Ridge Parkway..., June 21, 2007

By 

Commander Adama (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Blue Ridge Parkway (Paperback)

Dr. Harley Jolley, a combat veteran of the Second World War, earned a Ph.D in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and then spent some forty years as a professor of history at Mars Hill College, a small liberal-arts college nestled deep in the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina. His speciality became the history of the people of the Southern Appalachians; and of the Blue Ridge Parkway in particular. Construction on the Blue Ridge Parkway began during the Great Depression in the 1930's and wasn't fully completed until 1987. Today the two-lane highway is America's most popular scenic drive, attracting nearly ten million visitors each year. Beginning at the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, the Parkway winds for 469 miles along the crests of Blue Ridge Mountains, offering spectacular views from numerous "overlooks" along the highway, before finally ending at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park along the North Carolina-Tennessee border. In 1969 the National Park Service, which manages the Parkway, hired Dr. Jolley to write an "authoritative" history of the Parkway. Published by the University of Tennessee Press, "The Blue Ridge Parkway" won the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Award and for decades was listed by the Park Service as their "official" history of the famous road. Dr. Jolley offers a solid background history of the reasons for the Parkway's construction and the various political deals in Washington, D.C. that led to the approval for its' creation. The most fascinating part of the book for me was Dr. Jolley's detailed descriptions of how the Parkway was constructed. Since the Parkway was designed to be a scenic highway rather than one used for simple transportation, great care was taken to preserve and even improve the scenery around the highway. Dozens of skilled Italian craftsmen were hired to sculpt the picturesque rock/stone walls and fences which line much of the parkway. Tunnels were built, and in a few areas the road was cut into sheer rock cliffs hundreds of feet high, an amazing feat of technology and engineering in the 1930's and 1940's. Dr. Jolley offers a basically upbeat history of the Parkway, and as such this book has been criticized by recent historians (such as Anne Mitchell Whisnant) who have focused on the land disputes between the local farmers and the U.S. government over building rights, the cost to the environment, and the human cost to local residents and construction workers. As such the National Park Service no longer advertises Dr. Jolley's book as the "authoritative" version of the Parkway's history. However, in my opinion this book is still a good read if you want a straightforward account of the Parkway's history, and especially how it was constructed. On the Parkway's 50th anniversary Dr. Jolley published an updated version which follows the Parkway's construction through to its final completion in 1987. Recommended.