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Regional Visionaries and Metropolitan Boosters pp 139–175Cite as

The Green Mountain Parkway

Visionaries and Boosters — II

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Abstract

The proposed Green Mountain Parkway emerged from conflicting visions of regional development. Plans for the parkway, along the ridge and flanklines of the entire length of Vermont’s Green Mountains, were voted down in a statewide referendum in 1936. The rejection of the project attested to the public nature of the planning process, the broader issues involved in the development of such large-scale public infrastructure, and the political climate prevalent in Vermont. The debate over these issues, however, demonstrated quite publicly the tenets of the two groups vying for the development of resources in the region. Further, the history of the proposed Green Mountain Parkway shows that the National Park Service had truly institutionalized the planning and building of parkways in national parks by the mid-1930s. That is, after an inauspicious start to planning the Skyline Drive in 1931, the Park Service, by 1934 and 1935, recognized the value of an exhaustive resource survey prior to the beginning of construction.

Vermont has before her a momentous issue. She may lose the larger part of her legitimate share of the Federal public works appropriation, on which neverless she must pay the carrying charges. Or she may secure it for the creation of the only project of magnitude suited to her conditions, with which for all time to bring spiritual and material blessings to her own citizens and those of the country at large.1 William J. Wilgus, 1933.

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  1. William J. Wilgus, “Vermont’s Opportunity,” Bulletin of the Vermont State Chamber of Commerce August 8, 1933.

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  2. Frank M. Bryan, Yankee Politics in Rural Vermont (Hanover: The U P of New England, 1974) 202.

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  3. Wilgus, “Vermont’s Opportunity.”

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  4. Benton MacKaye characterized the proposed Green Mountain Parkway as “the slashing open of our eastern wilderness belts by skyline roads.” See Benton MacKaye, “Re Skyline Drives & the Appalachian Trail,” MacKaye Family Papers, Dartmouth College Library, Hanover, NH.

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  5. See Hannah Silverstein, “No Parking: Vermont Rejects the Green Mountain Parkway,” Vermont History 63 (1995): 134–140.

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  6. See Wilgus, “Vermont’s Opportunity,” and Hal Goldman, “James Taylor’s Progressive Vision: The Green Mountain Parkway,” Vermont History 63 (1995): 173. In “Vermont’s Opportunity,” Wilgus suggested that the Parkway project would include 1,000,000 acres of Vermont’s land.

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  7. See Wilgus, “Vermont’s Opportunity,” and James P. Taylor, “Vermont’s Opportunity,” Council Headlights2:1 (1935): 3; copy in the James P. Taylor Collected Papers, Vermont Historical Society, Montpelier, VT.

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  8. Wilgus, “Vermont’s Opportunity.”

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  10. Paul Goldberger, “Now Arriving: The Restoration of Grand Central Terminal is a Triumphant Validation of an Ambitious Urban Idea,” New Yorker September 28, 1998: 94.

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  11. See Earle Williams Newton, “Preface” to William J. Wilgus, The Role of Transportation in the Development of Vermont (Montpelier: Vermont Historical Society, 1945) 5.

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  12. See Wilgus, The Role of Transportation.

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  13. Harold M. Lewis, William J. Wilgus, and Daniel M. Turner, “Transportation in the New York Region, “ Regional Survey of New York and Its Environs: Transit and Transportation, and a Study of Port and Industrial Areas and Their Relation to Transportation, Vol. IV (New York: Regional Plan of New York and its Environs, 1928) 161–176; Harold MacLean Lewis, Regional Survey of New York and Its Environs: Transit and Transportation, and a Study of Port and Industrial Areas and Their Relation to Transportation, Vol. IV, by Harold M. Lewis, William J. Wilgus, and Daniel M. Turner (New York: Regional Plan of New York and its Environs, 1928) and Lewis Mumford, “The Plan of New York,” republished in Carl Sussman, ed., Planning the Fourth Migration: The Neglected Vision of the Regional Planning Association of America (Cambridge: MIT P, 1976) 238. Mumford wrote positively of Wilgus’ plan for the bay between Sandy Hook and Rockaway Point.

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  14. Wilgus, “Transportation in the New York Region” 161.

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  15. The Greater Vermont Association hired Taylor in 1912. By 1922 this Association became the Vermont State Chamber of Commerce. Biographical information on Taylor comes primarily from Goldman 160-165, and Laura Waterman and Guy Waterman, Forest and Crag: A History of Hiking, Trail Blazing, and Adventure in the Northeast Mountains (Boston: Appalachian Mountain Club, 1989) 353-357.

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  17. Waterman and Waterman, Forest and Crag 353–357, and Goldman, “James Taylor’s Progressive Vision” 164.

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  20. See for instance, Bryan, Yankee Politics; Frank M. Bryan and Kenneth Bruno, “Black-Topping the Green Mountains: Socio-Economic and Political Correlates of Ecological Decision Making,” Vermont History41 (1973) 224-235, and Richard Munson Judd, The New Deal in Vermont: Its Impact and Aftermath (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1979).

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  21. Bryan 233.

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  22. Bryan 224.

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  23. Bryan and Bruno 234. According to The Long Trail News, Vermont members of the GMC voted 117 for the Parkway, 129 against. Out-of-state members voted 79 for, 143 against. See “The Parkway,” The Long Trail NewsSeptember 1934,2.

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  24. Benton MacKaye, “An Appalachian Trail: A Project in Regional Planning,” Journal of the American Institute of Architects 9 (Oct. 1921): 325–330. The Long Trail was extended to the Canadian border by 1930, nine years after MacKaye wrote his article. For The Long Trail today, see The Green Mountain Club website, <www.greenmountainclub.org>.

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  25. For instance, the Myron Avery — Harold Anderson split. Avery felt opposing the Skyline Drive would interfere with the completion of the Appalachian Trail. Anderson felt the Skyline Drive interfered too much with the Trail.

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  26. “The Parkway,” The Long Trail News September 1934: 2.

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  27. James P. Taylor to John Nolen, September 28, 1934, Taylor Papers, Vermont Historical Society, Montpelier, VT.

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  28. See James P. Taylor to John Nolen, September 25, 1934, Doc T12, Taylor Papers, Vermont Historical Society, Montpelier, VT.

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  29. Judd 75-85.

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  30. Judd 36.

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  31. Wilgus, “Vermont’s Opportunity” 1.

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  32. Wilgus, “Vermont’s Opportunity” 1. Of course Acadia National Park (formerly Lafayette National Park) existed, as did the proposals for Shenandoah and the Great Smoky Montains National Park.

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  33. See Wilgus, “Transportation in the New York Region” 161; and Wilgus, “Vermont’s Opportunity” 2.

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  34. Vermont has approximately 5.9 million acres.

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  35. Benton MacKaye would use this phrase in “Flankline vs. Skyline,” Appalachia 20 (1934).

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  36. See The Vermont State Chamber of Commerce “Col. William J. Wilgus Explains the Proposed Green Mountain Parkway,” Bulletin of the Vermont State Chamber of Commerce 28 August 1933, and Wilgus, “Vermont’s Opportunity” 3-4.

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  37. Wilgus, “Vermont’s Opportunity” 4.

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  38. Wilgus, “Vermont’s Opportunity” 4.

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  39. See Goldman 169, and Vermont State Chamber of Commerce, “Col. William J. Wilgus Explains.”

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  40. John Nolen to James P. Taylor, July 24, 1933, Doc T12, Taylor Papers, Vermont Historical Society, Montpelier, VT. Nolen was referring to the study of parkways and land values he and Henry V. Hubbard were then conducting.

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  45. See Herb Evison, Interview with Dudley C. Bayliss, February 11, 1971, transcript available at the National Park Service Archive, National Park Service Center Archives, Harpers Ferry, WV. Laurie Davidson Cox spent most of his career as Professor of Landscape Architecture at The New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University (later SUNY College Environmental Science and Forestry). He had a distinguished career as a landscape architect completing designs such as Lincoln Park, Lincoln Park Conservatory, and Griffith Park in Los Angeles, as well as a set of athletic fields in Mamaroneck, NY. He also had an extremely successful career the lacrosse coach at Syracuse University and as the coach of the All-American Lacrosse Team. See Raymond J. Hoyle and Laurie Davidson Cox, eds., The New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University: A History of its First Twenty-Five Years, 1911 — 1936 (Syracuse, NY: The New York State College of Forestry, 1936) 56, and McClelland, Linda Flint, Presenting Nature: The Historic Landscape Design of the National Park Service (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1994) 34.

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  46. See Laurie Davidson Cox, Thomas C. Vint, et al. The Green Mountain Parkway Final Report by the Landscape Architects of the National Park Service (Washington, DC: GPO, 1935).

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  47. See Cox, et al., The Green Mountain Parkway Final Report 15; also 48ff; also see Cox, et al, Green Mountain Parkway Reconnaissance Survey 4-8.

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  48. Cox, et al, The Green Mountain Parkway Final Report 17–18.

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  49. Benton MacKaye, “Flankline vs. Skyline,” Appalachia 20 (1934): 107. The italics are MacKaye’s.

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  50. MacKaye, “Flankline vs. Skyline” 104ff.

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  51. MacKaye, “Flankline vs. Skyline” 104, footnote 1.

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  52. Ruth G. Hardy to Benton MacKaye, July 16, 1934, MacKaye Family Papers, Dartmouth College Library, Hanover, NH. Mrs, Hardy wrote MacKaye of her conversation with Cox at the meeting.

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  53. Benton MacKaye, “Expression of Sentiment of the Sixth Appalachian Trail Conference, Regarding Skyline Highways,” Long Trail Lodge, Vermont, June 30, 1934, MacKaye Papers, Dartmouth College Library, Hanover, NH. A cleaner version of this memo is called “Re Skyline Drives & The Appalachian Trail,” July 14, 1934, MacKaye Papers, Dartmouth College Library, Hanover, NH.

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  54. Hardy to MacKaye.

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  55. Hardy to MacKaye.

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  56. Laurie Davidson Cox, “The Green Mountain Parkway,” Landscape Architecture 25 (1935): 124.

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  57. Robert Marshall, “Memorandum to the Secretary [of the Interior], the Proposed Green Mountain Parkway,” Wilderness Society Collection, Denver Public Library, Denver, CO.

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  58. Marshall.

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  59. See Cox, et al, Green Mountain Parkway Final Report 50.

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  60. In the final report, for instance, Cox wrote of section in the southern most part of the Parkway — “[the Parkway] will cross through the largest section of wilderness (unbroken by roads) which exists in the state, and will pass through the extensive forest area of the Green Mountain National Forest.” See Cox, et al, Green Mountain Parkway Final Report, 20. Clearly, a wilderness area with a road through it is no longer wilderness.

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  61. See Laurie Davidson Cox to Robert Marshall, January 12, 1938, and Robert Marshall to Laurie Davidson Cox, January 20, 1932, Records of the U.S. Forest Service, Record Group 95, Entry 85, U-Recreation Areas (Primitive, Roadways, Wilderness) 1936-1939; NACP.

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  62. For the history of legislative actions, see Judd 85ff, Bryan 208-212, Silverstein 150-152, and Goldman 176.

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  63. Bryan 231-232.

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  64. Bryan published his study in the early 1970s.

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  65. Bryan 231-233.

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  66. See The Living Wilderness 1 (1935).

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  67. Harold L. Ickes, “Wilderness and Skyline Drives,” The Living Wilderness 1 (1935): 12.

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  68. The Vermont State Planning Board, the New England Regional Planning Commission, and the National Resources Board followed a process of regional survey and the formulation of a plan to facilitate traditional economic development interests. In contrast, the establishment of TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) raised the prospect of regional planning ideology associated with the Regional Planning Association of America. Benton MacKaye’s initial excitement over TVA and his hiring by the agency in 1934 proved disappointing in the end. MacKaye left after only 26 months with TVA. Daniel Schaffer wrote of MacKaye’s ideas, “MacKaye came to TVA with more than the Tennessee Valley’s immediate economic and resource problems on his mind; rather, he was enticed by a larger national vision.” Of MacKaye’s role, Schaffer wrote, “MacKaye is largely forgotten within the agency.” See Daniel Schaffer, “Benton MacKaye: The TVA Years,” Planning Perspectives5 (1990): 5-21.

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  69. John Nolen, “Orientation Statement of the Purpose, Objectives and Organization of State Planning for Vermont,” December 29, 1934, Doc. T 9, James P. Taylor Papers, Vermont Historical Society, Montpelier, VT. There is a significant history of state planning and regional planning in New England that needs examination. Although this history intersects with the Green Mountain Parkway, it is outside the scope of this book. Briefly, the history of state planning in Vermont and regional planning in New England came after the introduction of the Green Mountain Parkway and similar New England parkways (the Berkshire Hills Parkway cited by Laurie Davidson Cox, for example). The Green Mountain Parkway predated the call for and organization of the New England Regional Planning Commission, not vice versa.

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  70. See the New England Regional Planning Commission, Six for One and One for Six (Boston: New England Regional Planning Commission, 1937) 53, Vermont Historical Society, Montpelier, VT.

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  71. See Wilgus, The Role of Transportation in the Development of Vermont 9, Goldman 158–159, and John Nolen, Philip Shutler, Albert La Fleur, and Dana A. Doten, “Graphic Survey: A First Step in State Planning for Vermont: A Report Submitted to the Vermont State Planning Board and National Resources Board” (1935) 12-13.

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  72. Taylor, “Vermont’s Opportunity” 3.

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  73. Taylor, “Vermont’s Opportunity” 3.

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  74. James P. Taylor, “Memo — Is it Good Business?” undated (Jan.-June, 1934) Taylor Papers, Vermont Historical Society, Montpelier, VT.

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  75. See Ernest H. Bancroft, “Why People Should Favor Green Mountain Parkway,” The Vermonter 41 (Jan. — Feb. 1936): 5–8.

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  76. See Silverstein 135.

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  77. William Hazlett Upson, “The Green Mountain Parkway,” Informational Bulletin on State Problems 4 (Burlington: Vermont State Chamber of Commerce, 1934) 1.

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  78. Upson 2.

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  79. Upson 3.

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  80. Bancroft 6.

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  81. Bancroft 5-8.

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  82. See E.W. Opie to David W. Howe, January 1, 1936, Doc. T3, James P. Taylor Papers, Vermont Historical Society, Montpelier, VT.

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  83. Louis Spilman to David W. Howe, January 1, 1936, Doc. T3, James P. Taylor Papers, Vermont Historical Society, Montpelier, VT.

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  85. For an analysis of the roots of James P. Taylor’s understanding of progress, see Goldman.

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  86. James P. Taylor, Memo “Sent to Weeklies,” June 27, 1932, Doc T13, James P. Taylor Papers, Vermont Historical Society, Montpelier, VT. Taylor was obviously using his knowledge of the Regional Plan of New York and its Environs and the Regional Survey (which William J. Wilgus contributed) to embellish his understanding of the planning situation in Westchester County.

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  87. See Waterman and Waterman 353ff.

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  89. Schaffer 5-21.

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  90. Without making too great an issue of the validity of their arguments, I believe a number of historians who have looked at the Green Mountain Parkway believe it was to be a “skyline” road — other historians have viewed the controversy from different perspectives. Laurie Davidson Cox’s final report contradicts this, as does the conversation at the Appalachian Trail Conference reported to Benton MacKaye in a letter by his friend Ruth G. Hardy.

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  91. Philip Shutler to F. W. Shephardson, January 28, 1936, Doc. T13, James P. Taylor Papers, Vermont Historical Society, Montpelier, VT. “[…] there was neither engineering nor economic justification for the expense of climbing a peak from the south only to descend on the north, and then immediately start the ascent.”

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  92. Shutler to Shephardson, January 28, 1936, Doc. T13, Taylor Papers, Vermont Historical Society, Montpelier, VT.

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  93. MacKaye, “Flankline vs. Skyline,” 108. MacKaye wrote this article before Laurie Davidson Cox had even begun to survey the line for the proposed parkway.

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  98. Goldman 171-173. In 1933, 40,000 acres in the proposed parkway area were in the National Forest.

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  101. See the Journal of the House of the State of Vermont, Biennial Session, 1935, “The All-Vermont Plan” 232-234. The plan consistently referred to the Green Mountain Parkway as a “speedway,”

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  104. An alternate view, perhaps beyond the scope of this book and within the realm of political science, posits the influence of partisanship on the nature of the debate between the regionalists and the metropolitanists.

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  105. See Benton MacKaye, “Memorandum: Social Planning and Social Readjustment” MacKaye Family Papers, Dartmouth College Library, Hanover, NH.

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  106. “Trustee’s Meeting” 1.

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  1. Jackson State University, USA

    Matthew Dalbey

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© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Dalbey, M. (2002). The Green Mountain Parkway. In: Regional Visionaries and Metropolitan Boosters. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1083-3_6

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