Despite the peaceful harmony of nature that visitors observe when visiting this Appalachian park, the history of Shenandoah is one of great controversy. The formation of this park was painful, and if examined in depth, can lead one to question the philosophical foundation that justifies taking land from private citizens for the greater good.
Guide to Shenandoah
A Desire for More Parks
As the idea of national parks gained traction and popularity in the western states, the flood of tourist dollars into remote areas quickly became obvious, and eastern business interests began to take note.
Advocates for several eastern parks that could offer access and services to local travelers sprang into action in the early 1920s with movements toward the formation of Great Smoky Mountains, Mammoth Cave and Shenandoah National Parks.
Somehow, it did not prove difficult for Congress to authorize Shenandoah National Park in February of 1924, but gathering deeds to the land upon which the new park would sit, turned out to be a different story altogether.
A Park from Private Lands
Much of the land that makes up Shenandoah National Park today, once belonged to farmers, families and settlers, many of whom were, as of October of 1929, struggling to make their way through the depths of the Great Depression.
Students of park history are likely aware that Acadia National Park was assembled from private plots of land that were combined to form a larger, mostly contiguous park boundary.
However, these lands were comprised of land that was given to the federal government by wealthy landowners whose belief in the preservation of natural beauty trumped their personal desire to hold land. They were willing, and able, to give toward the greater good.
The story in Shenandoah is somewhat the same, however there is one big difference. This park was constructed of private lands as well, but the citizens who owned these lands were not wealthy business tycoons who had friends at Harvard, or in Washington. These were dirt-poor mountain people, who scraped by near the bottom of society’s financial rankings.
Condemned Homesteads
Those whose properties laid within the proposed boundaries of the park essentially saw their land taken through condemnation by the state or eminent domain during the decade following the park’s Congressional authorization.
More than 1,000 privately owned tracts of land were obtained by the state through such means, with residents either being relocated to Depression-era resettlement communities, or simply removed. Some more fortunate residents bargained to stay in their homes for the duration of their lives. The last of these folk, life-long resident Annie Bradley Shenk, died in 1979 at the age of 92.
Local Resistance
Local resistance to the park was intense. Many acres of proposed park land had been occupied by these families for more than a century at that point, not to mention the time occupied by Native Americans prior to that.
Efforts to procure the tracts necessary to draw the park boundaries nevertheless proved successful and Shenandoah National Park was officially created the day after Christmas, 1935 by the pen of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Limits of the Park Idea?
The history of Shenandoah hits me in a strange way. I certainly appreciate the incredible serenity of her mountains and and enjoy that pungent smell of her falling foliage on a quiet autumn day. I enjoy hiking in her hills, finding her hidden waterfalls and making my way up an exposed ridgeline on Old Rag.
There can be no doubt… It is a special place…
But at the same time, I question the constitutionality, indeed the wisdom and the philosophical premise that justifies the forceable removable of private lands in order to form a public park.
In the case of Shenandoah, many of the homesteads that were acquired to assemble the park were taken from hardscrabble farmers who had nothing in the world other than the raw land upon which their meager farms were situated.
I find it downright appalling that the deeds to the lands that comprise Acadia were acquired slowly, over the course of decades prior to her adoption as a national park, yet in Shenandoah, a quick congressional act took it all.
Often in Acadia, it took George Dorr years, if not decades, to convince certain property owners to give private lands away in an attempt to further the park idea.
By contrast, the people of Shenandoah were not asked to give their property, it was taken. There was no George Dorr, who gave his own land in full, and respectfully explained the importance of the park idea to his neighbors. The residents of Shenandoah were not wealthy land barons who had a second or third home. The majority of these people had nowhere to go…
Nevertheless, it appears congress gave not a second thought to the idea of booting these people from their homes, from their homesteads which provided for their sustenance and livelihoods. These people had not a choice.
It is my hope that as the park idea continues to evolve as we advance into the unknown future, we can learn from our mistakes and from our wrongs as a society. Indeed, many of our national historic sites are dedicated for the exact purpose of recognizing our social wrongs, of which we unfortunately have a great number.
Was the formation of Shenandoah a social wrong…? My jury is still out. But I certainly have great hesitation in saying that it was an acceptable way to form a national treasure…
While it may seem trivial to some in the upper ranks of our social structure, it is my belief that personal property is the epitome of personal liberty, which is one of the primary philosophical premises upon which our constitutional republic was founded.
To take personal property en mass for the case of recreational purposes may seem attractive, but I doubt that Shenandoah would have became a national park if it belonged to a group of rich oligarchs who had nowhere else to go…
Was it worth it…?
As stated earlier, I certainly enjoy and appreciate the beauty of Shenandoah and take every available opportunity to visit her hills, to wander through her valleys, to cruise along her heavily treelined ridges, and to summit her rocky peaks.
I bet the people whose land was taken to make this park enjoyed those activities too…
Guide to Shenandoah
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