NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Visual Preferences of Travelers Along the Blue Ridge Parkway

America's natural and cultural history is revealed in her rural landscape. An awareness of the agricultural subsistence of rural America is becoming more elusive today, as historic buildings, old homesites, and barns crumble with age and misuse. Vegetation overtakes the remnants of our cultural heritage, and economic pressures convert greater amounts of green space and landscape into developments. Fortunately, efforts have been made to preserve and conserve the natural and cultural settings of early rural America through the protection and management of the rural landscape. The crest of the Blue Ridge Parkway was selected almost fifty years ago as the route of the first rural park way in the world. Its purpose was to link Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee by way of a recreation-oriented motor road. Threading its way along much of the crest of the Appalachian Mountain chain for almost five hundred miles, the parkway provides a variety of opportunities for the motoring public. The parkway takes travelers quietly and leisurely through a living laboratory of mountain landscapes, plant and animal communities, and human lifestyles.

In locating and constructing the parkway, the objective was simple: to please the traveler by revealing the charm and interest of the countryside. This objective attempted to take advantage of land features such as fields, fences, streams, rock formations, woodlands, and wild flowers, as well as the distant mountain vistas.

Our role today is to protect and preserve the integrity of these natural features as well as the cultural and natural visual resources that make the parkway so unique. We want future generations to experience the independence, the self-sufficiency, and the pride of the mountain folk. At the same time, we want them to learn more about us, the National Park Service, and our stewardship responsibility.

This book is important because it offers guidance on the best possible use of our funds and manpower to protect and preserve our rural landscape. As we manage this important national treasure according to the mandate handed down by Congress, we want to ensure that the people's values are a key part of the decisions we make for the perpetuation of the visual resources along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The research techniques and theories described in this book offer a useful guide to the management and protection of America's rural landscapes. In so doing, it provides a unique opportunity to better understand America's visual experience.

Gary Everhardt, Superintendent
Blue Ridge Parkway