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By BARBARA STEWART
Rappahannock New* Contributing Writer
(Editor’8 note: This article is the last of the series about the history of Shenandoah National Park.)
After the Southern Appalachian National Park Committee decided that the Shenandoah National Park should be the first park in the southern Appalachians, the next step for George Freeman Pollack and all the other park boosters was to raise money towards purchase of park lands. Another association was formed by the Virginia State Chamber of Commerce.
“Buy an acre for $6," was the campaign slogan. One of my favorite footnotes to the money story involved John D. Rockefeller Jr., a famous parks fan. He later donated $5 million dollars to the purchase of lands in the Smokies. According to an employee’s researches, he gave $163,361.05 for Shenandoah. Was he balancing a checkbook?
More important, over 24,000 individuals donated money to the project. Yes, there were big contributors, including the Commonwealth and Edsel Ford. There were also names you can’t find when you read accounts in “Great Man” histories. School children, business people, professionals and organizations from all around the state pledged or donated money for a national park in Virginia.
The monies raised showed that lands for a park could be bought. In the first months of 1926, Congressional hearings were held. On May 22, 1926, President Calvin Coolidge signed the bill authorizing Shenandoah National Park.
It was not until December of 1935 that the Park was established. Between President Coolidge’s signa- ture and President Franklin Roosevelt’s dedication speech in 1936, there was plenty of sweat and tears.
The 1926 act authorizing the Park set the maximum boundary to include over half a million acres. Three-quarters of that had to be delivered in order for the park to be established.
It was quickly clear that the state had bitten off more than it could chew. Surveys of lands and a better cost estimate proved it. Carson and the Virginia State Commission on Conservation and Development, convinced the Park Service and the Congress of the need for change. In 1928 the minimum area necessary for park development was declared at 327,000 acres.
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