Documenting the American South

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The Digital Blue Ridge Parkway

About the Blue Ridge Parkway

The links below provide some useful background information about the Blue Ridge Parkway's history and construction that will help you to navigate and understand the historical materials included in Driving Through Time. For instance, almost all of the materials in the collection can be linked to a Parkway "section." These sections refer to the 45 short units into which the Parkway was divided for planning and construction. (There were 24 sections in North Carolina.) The northernmost unit in Virginia (transferred in 1961 to Shenandoah National Park) was numbered 1-A, the next 1-B, etc. Beginning at the Virginia/North Carolina border, sections were numbered 2-A, 2-B, etc,. moving southward to 2-Z at Cherokee (there are no sections 2-I or 2-O). The construction sections varied in length from 5.7 to 15.6 miles. Click the links below to learn more.