These past couple days have been spent attempting to gather primary sources. This proved somewhat a challenge as Liz and I both had exceedingly busy schedules and were unable to visit an archive in person. However, archives are certainly not the only place where primary sources can be found! I managed to locate a couple of articles in North Carolina newspapers discussing the Parkway and its influence on Western North Carolina. I also located a report written by the National Park Service to North Carolina Governor Luther Hodges as well as an article discussing the estimated rate of tourism owed to the Parkway and how this has influenced the local economies of communities near the Parkway. A couple of the best sources I found came directly from the National Park Service itself—two different reports showing yearly visitation to the BRP (since 1941) and a monthly breakdown of visitors to the Parkway, including a comparison of the number of visitors to the North Carolina section of the Parkway versus the Virginia portion.

I apologize, but our bibliographies still aren’t formatted quite right. I did the best I could with them, but will do my best to resolve this issue promptly. I admit too that I may have misunderstood whether or not the bibliographies were supposed to be separate or on one document. I have put them on two separate documents and have included links here:

Secondary Source Annotated Bibliography-

Primary Source Annotated Bibliography

This is but a small taste of the sources we are certain we will find as we begin to delve deeper into this story. This handful of primary sources, in addition to the secondary source that we found earlier in the week, are beginning to come together to form a small piece of a much bigger puzzle.