No Price This Mountain!

Is the good of many worth the misfortune of few? In this project we show that the government is not always “by the people, for the people.” Three things have helped us understand this "complicated story" - a little! These things are "The Iris Still Blooms" (a brief WVPT video), Grandpa's Mountain (a historical fiction book for kids), and The Undying Past of the Shenandoah National Park (a book about the history of the park). We have organized our ThinkQuest web site around these and you will always find links to them in the picture above.

When the government built the Shenandoah National Park in the 1930’s, they destroyed approximately 460 peoples’ homes. They used the Civilian Conservation Corps to their own advantage. The CCC boys were desperate for money because of the Great Depression. Some people were willing to give up their houses in the mountains because they wanted to be closer to civilization. Others weren’t willing to give up their family homes and businesses. Some people fought for the right to keep the houses and tried to make the government create the park somewhere else. But the government of Virginia wouldn’t listen. The people who were displaced were very angry at the state. What happened?

When you visit the Shenandoah National Park, think of the people who were removed to create it. This site is dedicated to all the people who were displaced from their homes when the Shenandoah National Park was created.