Blue Ridge Parkway mountain sunset, NC, circa 1940

About this postcard

A rocky overlook in the foreground opens onto a broad view of forested Blue Ridge ridges fading into a pink and orange sunset sky, with a lone evergreen at the right. The printed caption calls it one of the many beautiful scenes along the Blue Ridge Parkway, the scenic motor road that links Shenandoah National Park in Virginia with Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina. Work on the Parkway began in the 1930s as a New Deal project, with crews from the Civilian Conservation Corps and other relief programs building the roadbed, the roadside overlooks, and the stone parapets that frame views like this one. Scenic cards of the southern mountains were steady sellers to motorists touring the region in the years before the highway was finished.