The Colonial Parkway

by Frances Watson Clark

Overview

The Colonial Parkway is a living timeline to the critical beginnings of our nation. Connecting a historic triangle of cities, the parkway winds along the James River overlooking Jamestown Island, where the first permanent English colony was established; through Williamsburg, the Colonial seat of government for the new country; and arrives in Yorktown, where the fledgling nation won independence from the British at the end of the Revolutionary War. The vision of the early directors of the U.S. National Park Service became the foundation for getting the approval to construct a road that would allow visitors to move from one historic place to the next without the disruptions of the modern world. Construction began in the early 1930s, and the final phase was finished in 1957 for the 350th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown. While the parkway is a marvel in engineering, the area it covers also serves as a recreational locale for biking, fishing, and hiking.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780738585758
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	08/30/2010
Series:	Images of America Series
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	1,113,472
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Author Frances Watson Clark is a resident of Williamsburg. In Images of America: The Colonial Parkway, photographs depict the stories of the men and women who had the determination to see the parkway's construction from its inception to completion over a span of 75 years.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 6

Introduction 7

1 Before the Parkway 9

2 Creation and Development of the Parkway 15

3 Construction of the Parkway 29

4 The Tunnel 55

5 The Jamestown Markers 67

6 The Williamsburg Markers 83

7 The Yorktown Markers 89

8 Events, Wildlife, and Recreation on the Parkway 103

Bibliography 127

Related Internet Sites 127

Editorial Reviews

Title: Our Parkway
Author: The Virginia Gazette
Publisher: The Virginia Gazette
Date: 8/18/2010

Gazette columnist Jim Baker once referred to the Colonial Parkway as "America's skinniest National Park."

Born out of the Restoration and the Depression, it has been the subject of many articles. Now comes a concise picture book in the Arcadia series, "Images of America."

Frances Watson Clark of Williamsburg has culled and assembled a detailed chronology of the parkway as it extends 23 miles between Yorktown and Jamestown.

Clark considers it "truly an architectural marvel " a sort of paved timeline through America's Colonial period, linking three distinct and historically important communities with a route unmarred by modern roadside development and billboards."

She begins by crediting the famous Horace Albright as one of two key National Park Service directors who launched the idea at the suggestion of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and others. Albright was featured in Ken Burns" PBS series on the Park Service.

One beauty of the parkway is that it follows the York River on one side and the James River on the other. That was easier said than done, since the Navy had to give up land, and executives with Colonial Williamsburg were not wild about cutting through the newly restored Historic Area. At least one alternative route would have gone around town through Rockefeller Woods.

The tunnel was done by 1942. "The advent of World War II, however, meant a diversion of funds and manpower to the war effort," Clark writes. So the tunnel didn't open until 1949, and the Jamestown leg was completed for Queen Elizabeth's first visit in 1957.

From the Publisher