The Blue Ridge Parkway was built to connect Shenandoah National Park with The Great Smokey Mountains National Park. Col. Joseph Hyde Pratt conceived the idea of such a mountain roadway early in the 20th Century. He believed people would soon be using automobiles more for recreation than any other purpose and thought a mountain roadway would be an ideal location for day trips. He envisioned it running from Virginia to Atlanta, Georgia, with most of the roadway running through North Carolina. The road would include a chain of hotels from Marion, Virginia to Tallulah Falls, Georgia. In 1912 Pratt reported to the North Carolina Good Roads Association that he and his men had surveyed the route and construction for this road began in July 1912. The section of road between Altapass and Pineola, North Carolina was completed, but the rest was abandoned as a result of US involvement in World War I. Although Pratt never finished his project, new groups of supporters pushed for the project in the 1930s. The construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway closely followed the route originally planned by Pratt.

By 1930, the idea of federally funded highways connecting national parks became a topic of conversation. Congressman Maurice H. Thatcher of Kentucky proposed a road leading from Washington, DC, through Virginia, into North Carolina, and continuing on to The Great Smokey Mountains National Park in Tennessee. The initial plan for the parkway bypassed North Carolina altogether. North Carolina then became involved in lobbying to have a portion of the roadway in their state. In the end, Tennessee was left out of the construction.

Despite all his efforts, Thatcher was not able to construct the parkway. In 1933, the idea caught the interest of another group. The National Recovery Act of 1933 ordered the Public Works Administration (PWA) to develop a program involving the construction, maintenance, and improvement of public highways and parkways. During that same year President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Skyline Drive, a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) project in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park. Roosevelt agreed to plans for a smiliar road connecting Shenandoah and The Great Smokey Mountains National Parks.

Planning and landscape design for the Parkway began December 26, 1933 and on September 11, 1935, officials broke ground on a twelve-mile section at Cumberland Knob, just south of the Virginia/North Carolina border. On June 30, 1936, an act of Congress placed the Parkway under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service of the US Department of the Interior. Work on the Parkway progressed in strips, as the land required was bought from the owners.

Since the construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway fell under the provisions of the New Deal, it required contractors to hire people from the local unemployment rolls, which meant 90% of the workforce came from local communities. Contractors could hire from outside the area when a project required special skills, such as stone masonry.

Work on the road continued until construction was halted during World War II. After the war, limited funding slowed the progress. The Blue Ridge Parkway was finally dedicated on September 11, 1987, following the completion of the last section at Linn Cove Viaduct. Although the dedication occurred fifty-two years after the groundbreaking, portions of the highway had been used for many years. Today the Blue Ridge Parkway stretches for 469 miles, connecting Shenandoah and The Great Smokey Mountains National Parks, providing one of the most scenic drives in the country.