S is for Shenandoah

Tim Iverson
Naturalist

(10/2020) In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, America began taking a real interest in conservation and the value of public lands. National parks were set aside to tell the stories of America and to preserve places unlike any other in the world. At the dawn of the agency, the National Park Service was expanding throughout the American West preserving immense natural cathedrals like Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon. In the east there were historical battlefield sites, like Gettysburg and Antietam, that were originally preserved by the military and later transferred and consolidated into the National Park Service. Yet the east still had not yet realized any national parks in the mold of the grand western parks.

Acadia National Park edged out Shenandoah to become the first national park in the east. However, increasing urbanization continued to feed the desire for another park in the south. By 1925, legislation authorizing the creation of Shenandoah emerged from Congress and was signed by President Calvin Coolidge. However, it would be another 10 years before the dream was finally realized. Shenandoah National Park was officially established December 26, 1935.

The original legislation envisioned the park to be more than 500,000 acres, but it contained no federal funding with which to acquire the land. These circumstances raised the dominoes that would eventually fall on the unwitting residents of the mountain that would become Shenandoah National Park.

The Governor of Virginia, Harry F. Byrd, championed the creation of the park, believing that it would increase tourism to help the economy. Together with the state legislature they formed a commission and appropriated it with $1 million for land acquisition with which the park would be created. As the commission set about surveying and appraising land, numerous problems arose. Many local residents had no claim to the land they farmed and lived on. Some were squatters on abandoned tracks of old homesteads. Others were tenant farmers who had no control on the outcome or share in the sale of the land they occupied. Others still had were the descendants of generational farmers and landowners who refused to sell at any price.

Ultimately the unstoppable tide of progress would acquire the land by one means or another. While some took the offers the commission made and received fair compensation, others found they were offered considerably less than they deserved. Much of the land was legally and rightfully purchased, however many sections were condemned and acquired through the legal practice of eminent domain. The tenant farmers and squatters were evicted. In order to ensure the occupants did not return their cabins were burned. Older residents who refused to sell were persuaded by the state commission that if they sold their land they would be able to remain in place and after their eventual death the land would be turned over to the park. However, the Department of Interior, which manages the National Park Service, never agreed to this and eventually forced many of these people out.

One land owner, Robert H. Via was determined to keep his land, fighting vehemently to ensure it wouldn’t be taken away. He filed a lawsuit, which made its way all the way to The Supreme Court. Citing the 14th Amendment, he believed the condemnations and use of eminent domain was a violation of due process. The court ultimately decided not to hear the case, signalling his ultimate defeat. Via left Shenandoah and never cashed the payment made for his land from the government.

One by one the residents left, either through an amicable agreement or by force. After a decade in the making, the patchwork of nearly 200,000 acres, less than half of the original vision, was finally assembled to create Shenandoah National Park in 1935. Stitching together the park was a difficult task, but creating the park ushered in a new era of hope and revitalization during one of the bleakest times in modern history.

The Civilian Conservation Corp, was a "New Deal" relief program offered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt provided jobs and economic opportunity to young able-bodied men during the Great Depression. Over the course of seven years, the young men who came to Shenandoah built much of the infrastructure that became the park. Their crowning achievement in Shenandoah became the construction and landscaping of Skyline Drive, the most popular attraction. Nearly 7,000 men over seven years worked in Shenandoah creating the park we know today. During that time they left the legacy of dozens of camps, they blazed hundreds of miles of trails, and planted thousands of trees - which have become a seasonal sensation in their own right.

During the summer, leaves are little factories for trees. Green tinted chlorophyll allows leaves to capture sunlight and make energy for the tree. The chlorophyll is sensitive to cold temperatures, so when the air gets crisp trees respond by producing less of it. Hidden within the leaves all along were yellow and orange color pigments called carotenoids, also found in carrots, that finally have their moment to shine through. In some leaves while the chlorophyll is breaking down it causes other chemical reactions to occur in the leaf. Anthocyanins are then created, which in turn make brilliant reds out of the once verdant leaves.

As the colors begin to fade another process, called abscission, begins to take place. Abscission means to "cut away," and that’s exactly what happens to the leaf. Where a leaf stem attaches to the tree a special layer of cells gradually develops severing the connective tissue. As a gust of wind comes along it blows the leaf off and the body of the tree is sealed shut by this new layer of tissue.

Every autumn thousands ascend Skyline Drive to view the annual arboreal display of color cascading down the mountain to the valley below. Both the Washington Post and Shenandoah National Park offer foliage predictions. Typically peak color change occurs here around mid-October. While viewing the foliage from a car offers a great socially distanced method to escape Covid cabin fever, the park also offers a live 24-hour web cam in the event visitors can not make the trek.

The scenery of Shenandoah reminds visitors of the history and the people of the mountain. It’s a dynamic cycle of renewal that tells the story of what Shenandoah was, has become, and will be. As America’s storytellers, the National Park Service has an obligation to share the experience and lives of those who helped create Shenandoah National Park.