Another Story on the Tender Mercies of Government -- Eminent Domain

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This case occured in the 1920's, in Virginia, by one group of Virginians upon another group of Virginians. One group wanted what the others had, and used the guns of the state, literally, to get it.

The Eminent-Domain Origin of Shenandoah National Park

by Bart Frazier

The establishment of Shenandoah National Park in 1926 is one of the greatest abuses of eminent domain in our country’s history. With the Commonwealth of Virginia condemning the entire area and removing more than 450 families, many by force, the park would eventually encompass 196,000 acres. After people were evicted, Virginia transferred the property to the federal government and Shenandoah National Park was born. The history books have forgotten the episode, but it is one that needs to be remembered.

Just as with politics today, the main force behind the establishment of Shenandoah National Park (SNP) was a special-interest group, for it was not a federal bureaucracy that pined for the park but local Virginians themselves.

In 1924, the secretary of the Interior had established a committee to investigate a potential site for a national park in the southern Appalachians. Knowing that it would be a boon to tourism, many residents in the Shenandoah Valley of central Virginia began lobbying for the park to be located there. That same year, nearly 1,000 local residents gathered in Harrisonburg and established Shenandoah Valley, Inc., whose slogan was “A National Park Near the Nation’s Capital.”

The tactics used to influence the decision on the park’s location would do any K Street veteran proud. Shenandoah Valley, Inc., inaugurated the Apple Blossom Festival in Winchester to showcase the area’s beauty. It is still held annually to this day. Harry Byrd, one of the most influential members of Shenandoah Valley, Inc., hosted members of the search committee at his Skyland resort high up in the Blue Ridge. At Skyland, the committee reveled in the resort’s beautiful wilderness and sweeping vistas of the Shenandoah Valley. Skyland can still be visited within SNP today as a campground and picnic area.

After the committee’s visit, more than 500 valley residents traveled to Washington, D.C., and held a meeting to show how much local support there was for the park. They were not disappointed. In May of 1926, President Calvin Coolidge signed a bill authorizing the establishment of Shenandoah National Park.

Now that Virginians had succeeded in getting the park established within their state, the job of actually obtaining the land was the biggest obstacle to getting tourist dollars flowing. An arduous task lay ahead of them.
Collective condemnation

The bill that Coolidge signed stipulated that no federal funds could be used to acquire the land the park would comprise. The job of obtaining the land therefore fell to the Commonwealth of Virginia. The idea of buying the land from the owners was immediately ruled out, as it was thought too difficult an undertaking. William E. Carson, director of the state commission responsible for managing the land acquisition, stated,

It was manifestly hopeless to undertake to acquire the necessary area by direct purchase [because] any of the thousands of owners or claimants could hold up the entire project unless paid exorbitant and unfair prices, with jury trials, appeals, and all the endless delays which can be injected into ordinary condemnation proceedings by selfish, stubborn, and avaricious litigants.

It is clear that government officials at the time considered these property owners as nothing more than obstacles. Their concern was not for their rights, but simply for the difficulty that they would present in bringing the national-park project to fruition. Indeed, many people, including the press, thought they were doing the property owners a favor by running them off their land. The general consensus was that the people who inhabited these mountains were living as animals and needed to be civilized. National Park Service official Arno Cammerer stated, “There is no person so canny as certain types of mountaineers, and none so disreputable.” SNP official James R. Lassiter stated in 1935 that residents suffered from a lack of “independence and resourcefulness” and from their “dependence on outside help.”

So in order to avoid the slow and painful process of negotiating prices with each landowner, Virginia passed the Public Park Condemnation Act. The act simply confiscated all the lands that would make up the park. Officials then formed a three-man committee to assess the value of each property that the owner would be paid. Once the condemnation had been signed into law, the next task was to remove the inhabitants.

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