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called. “So that’s where I got my instructions for this Skyline Drive. Right from the president’s mouth, right up there where the road is now.”
The idea for the drive came even earlier. In 1925, State Sen. Harry F. Byrd was quoted in Old Colony Magazine: “The East has no great mountain drive, but if the National Parks Commission has its way a highway will be built the entire length of the park on top of the mountain.. .Often the drive will be above the clouds.”
In March 1931, the Department of Interior announced construction plans. Skyline Drive would be built immediately from Panorama to Swift Run Gap. The announcement further noted: “the people of this mountainous area are in dire straits. . .Like all mountain people they have a sturdy independence. The construction. . .at this time will. . .offer them employment instead of charity.”
The efforts of those who built the drive are almost a wonder in themselves. An average of 1,000 pounds of dynamite was used daily just for Marys Rock tunnel. Five hundred pounds was loaded into 40 holes and set off by electricity twice in 24 hours. Every day 15 or more feet of solid rock was eaten away by the blasts. After an explosion it took two or three hours to clear away the loose boulders and stone and to roll them over the side of the dizzy fill at the mouth of the tunnel.
The machinery as never idle except on Sunday. All the machinery, bit and little, had to be cleared out of the tunnel before every blast. Three eight-hour shifts of about 15 men each were on duty, paid from 20 to 35 cents an hour.
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