A car emerges from the trees to cross Halfway Creek, enroute to Jamestown, (Jack Boucher, HAER, 1995)

Aerial photo showing parkway extending south from the City of Williamsburg through then-rural James City County towards Jamestown crossing Halfway Creek and College Creek, 1955. (COLO)

A CIVIL DEFENSE HIGHWAY

As part of the original agreement between the Navy and the NPS, the parkway was closed through Navy lands during World War II. New utility lines and access roads were built across the parkway to serve defense needs and the road was used for convoy training. In 1945 the Navy agreed to halt all transports on the parkway and help in the restoration of the landscape destroyed during three years of wartime use. Heavily reliant upon federal works projects during the 1930s, the park found itself with shortages of both funds and labor during the post-war years.

CONSTRUCTION, WILLIAMSBURG TO JAMESTOWN

After the completion of the tunnel in 1942, only a few projects were undertaken for over a decade. In 1949, the NPS made the completion of the parkway a priority. That year it sent landscape architect Stanley Abbott to the area to begin planning for the extension of the parkway to Jamestown. Abbott's involvement in the parkway's completion expanded in 1953 when he was made superintendent of the park. During the early 1950s the park finalized plans to complete the parkway following the high design standards established in the 1930s. With Mission 66 funding, based upon an ambitious redevelopment directive set forth by NPS director Conrad Wirth in 1956, Colonial NHP was able to realize its plans to unify the park.

Rendering of one of Sidney King's "Galley-in-the-Woods" murals on Jamestown Island,. (Magdalena Bielecka, HAER)

JAMESTOWN'S 350th ANNIVERSARY

The impetus for a more concerted effort to complete the parkway was the anticipation of the 1957 anniversary of Jamestown's founding. The parkway was but one aspect of a comprehensive construction program for the park which resulted in new visitor centers, recreational facilities, modernized tour roads, and an integrated interpretive plan for the park complete with historical markers mounted along the entire parkway corridor.

The period between 1955 and 1957 was extremely active for the park. Pennits for hydraulic fill and bridge location were acquired from the Army Corps of Engineers and contractors proceeded to create an adequate roadbed. Perhaps the most ambitious project was the recreation of a connecting isthmus between Jamestown Island and the mainland that had existed in the 17th century. Parkway construction was hampered by bad weather in the spring of 1957, requiring contractors to complete paving operations on twenty-four hour workdays under flood lights. The push to complete the road resulted in severe damage to pavement and bridges in fill areas which did not receive adequate time to settle. Despite the problems, on April 27, 1957 the Colonial Parkway was opened for traffic along the entire route between Yorktown and Jamestown.

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