Page:America's Highways 1776–1976.djvu/518

 The James River Bridge on the Blue Ridge Parkway has a pedestrian walkway beneath the motor vehicle deck.

Most of the parkway is above 3,000 feet. It does not drop below 2,000 feet except for a few river crossings, such as the James, Roanoke, and French Broad Rivers. Sections of the parkway near Mount Mitchell, North Carolina, and on the Pisgah Ridge rise above 5,000 feet.

By the end of 1939, 47 miles had been surfaced and an additional 87 miles graded, drained, and gravel-base constructed on the Blue Ridge Parkway. An additional 170 miles were under construction.

After World War II, work was resumed on the Blue Ridge Parkway. By 1975 the Blue Ridge Parkway was complete except for a short gap near Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina.

In 1934 Congress passed an act directing the study of an additional parkway, the Natchez Trace Parkway, to follow, as nearly as possible, the original route of the old Natchez Trace. The Natchez Trace was one of the early important Indian Trails, extending from the Cumberland River at Nashville in a southwest course through the Chickasaw and Choctaw Indian lands near Jackson, Mississippi, to Natchez, Mississippi.

As early as 1798, Governor Winthrop Sargent of the Mississippi Territory was urging the construction of a post road to the Natchez District, and in 1801 and 1802 treaties made with the Chickasaw and 512