Did You Know?
Staffing levels at the Blue Ridge Parkway have decreased 30% since 2001 resulting in downed trees being cleared less frequently, vistas becoming overgrown, and a reduced quality of visitor experience.
Old Well, UNC-Chapel Hill, 2010 Photo by Anne Mitchell Whisnant
Location
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Anne M. Whisnant
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
919.962.1671
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Near milepost 220
North Carolina’s research, education, and government center, the Research Triangle region is home to the dynamic Research Triangle Park, flagship state and private universities (UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke University, North Carolina State University, North Carolina Central University), and the state capital, Raleigh.
As the seat of state government and a center of research, the Research Triangle region has long been a center of activity related to the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was especially important at the Parkway’s birth in the 1930s, when Raleigh-based state leaders from the governor to the head of the State Highway and Public Works Commission (as the Department of Transportation was then known) lobbied hard to see that substantial Parkway mileage would be built in North Carolina. Once the routing decision was made, the State Highway Commission handled land acquisition for the Parkway in North Carolina, an effort headed by engineer R. Getty Browning, who was based in Raleigh. State government’s intensive involvement with the Parkway continued through the completion of land acquisition in the 1960s, when the conflict over the route around Grandfather Mountain was resolved with considerable input from three governors. In more recent years, the Triangle has been home to considerable research on the Parkway, from recreation management and engineering studies to historical accounts, such as Super-Scenic Motorway: A Blue Ridge Parkway History, published in 2006 by Chapel Hill’s University of North Carolina Press. The University of North Carolina Libraries are today sponsoring development of “Driving through Time: The Digital Blue Ridge Parkway,” which will make available on the Web historical materials illustrating the Parkway’s development and drawn from repositories all over the Parkway region.
