Skyline Drive Historic District

Skyline Drive is a 105.5-mile mountaintop road following the crest of the Blue Ridge in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, together with its overlooks, waysides, picnic grounds, campgrounds and lodge areas. Proposed in 1924, it was begun in 1931 and finished in phases, with the central section opening in 1934, the northern in 1936 and the southern in 1939. It was built with drought relief funds and New Deal programs, employing about four thousand laborers hired for road construction and more than ten thousand Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees. Designers adapted National Park Service naturalistic principles, developed for western parks, to the Appalachians: curving alignments, planted and rounded slopes, stone guardwalls and frequent scenic overlooks. Rustic lodges such as Big Meadows, Dickey Ridge and Lewis Mountain show the style in architecture. The drive and its main developed areas have changed relatively little since the early 1940s, and it is recognized for its role in conservation, recreation, landscape architecture and Depression-era relief.