The Blue Ridge Tunnel: A Remarkable Engineering Feat in Antebellum Virginia

by Arcadia Publishing

Overview

Told through the eyes of three Irish immigrant families who helped build it, discover the groundbreaking story of the construction of the Blue Ridge Tunnel.

In one of the greatest engineering feats of his time, Claudius Crozet led the completion of Virginia's Blue Ridge Tunnel in 1858. Two centuries later, the National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark still proudly stands, but the stories and lives of those who built it are the true lasting triumph. Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Hunger poured into America resolute for something to call their own. They would persevere through life in overcrowded shanties and years of blasting through rock to see the tunnel to completion. Prolific author Mary E. Lyons follows three Irish families in their struggle to build Crozet's famed tunnel and their American dream.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626194212
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	02/25/2014
Series:	Transportation
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Mary E. Lyons, a former teacher and librarian, became a full-time writer in 1993. She is the author of nineteen books for young readers published by Scribner, Atheneum, Henry Holt, Houghton Mifflin and Oxford University Press. Born and raised in the American South, she holds dual Irish and US citizenships. She and her husband, Paul, are members of the Blue Ridge Tunnel Foundation and live in Charlottesville, Virginia.