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Ranger Chuck Anibel of Shenandoah National Park described the mountain culture that once existed in the Blue Ridge as “rich and unique.. . You can’t make generalizations about the people. They were individuals,”
At the time the Park was created in 1926, 450 families lived in the hollows and on the hillsides. According to Anibel, 130 of those families were resettled; the rest moved on their own. “Those who were resettled were those who didn’t make their own arrangements.”
At the turn of the century, the land that is now the Park was home to twice as many people. They left, the ranger said, because the mountains’ ability to support their lives had ebbed.
Immigrants to the mountains came initially from the rich Shenandoah Valley. “They were tenth sons of the tenth son. They didn’t have their own land in the valley. That’s the reason why they moved to the mountains.” But the mountain farms on the thin soils of the slopes couldn’t support the farming practices brought from the deep, rich soils of the valley, he added.
“Their life style changed from that of their ancestors in the valley due to the environment here, the harshness of it. They became subsistence farmers trying to scratch a living from a very resistant land.
“They were able to hunt until the wildlife was gone. They farmed until the land ran out. They cut timber until the trees ran out and they sold chestnut bark to the tanneries until the chestnuts all died.”
According to Anibel, most of the mountain people owned the land they farmed. Some had jobs in local industries—cattle ranching in Big Meadows, saw mills, the tanneries, a copper mine. But the local border industries at the base of the mountains failed when the railroads stopped, he added. “Also technology made many of their jobs obsolete...The mountain economy, if you want to call it an economy, was mainly a subsistence economy.”
It was copper mining interests that brought George Pollock, recognized as the father of Shenandoah National Park, to the area, according to Anibel. “He was just 16 years old when he showed up in the 1880s, investigating copper mining opportunities for his father. He decided he wanted to create a resort instead and so he built Skyland.”
The U.S. Congress authorized establishment of a park in the Blue Ridge in 1926 but with the condition that no federal funds would go to the project. Efforts to secure contributions slowed, however, with the arrival of the depression. “People weren’t out to give money or land so the State of Virginia stepped in,” Anibel said, The Commonwealth mass condemnation law cleared the way for the dream of ShenanI ' 1 1,1 '■ ' 111 ' I
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