Colonial Parkway - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Colonial Parkway is a scenic 23-mile (37 km) parkway

Parkway

The term parkway has several distinct principal meanings and numerous synonyms around the world, for either a type of landscaped area or a type of road.Type of landscaped area:...

linking the three popular attractions of Virginia's Historic Triangle

Historic Triangle

The Historic Triangle is located on the Virginia Peninsula of the United States and includes the colonial communities of Jamestown, Colonial Williamsburg, and Yorktown, with many restored attractions linked by the Colonial Parkway in James City and York counties and the City of...

of colonial-era communities, Jamestown

Jamestown, Virginia

Jamestown was a settlement in the Colony of Virginia. Established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 14, 1607 , it was the first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States, following several earlier failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke...

, Williamsburg

Williamsburg, Virginia

Williamsburg is an independent city located on the Virginia Peninsula in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of Virginia, USA. As of the 2010 Census, the city had an estimated population of 14,068. It is bordered by James City County and York County, and is an independent city...

, and Yorktown

Yorktown, Virginia

Yorktown is a census-designated place in York County, Virginia, United States. The population was 220 in the 2000 census. It is the county seat of York County, one of the eight original shires formed in colonial Virginia in 1634....

. It is part of the National Park Service

National Park Service

The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...

's Colonial National Historical Park

Colonial National Historical Park

Colonial National Historical Park is located in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia and is operated by the National Park Service of the United States government...

.

With portions built between 1930 and 1957, the Colonial Parkway joins the three communities with a scenic and bucolic roadway carefully shielded from views of commercial development; a major effort has also been made to keep traffic signs and other modern roadside items to a minimum, and make them unobtrusive where unavoidable. This helps visitors mentally return to the past, and there are often views of wildlife

Wildlife

Wildlife includes all non-domesticated plants, animals and other organisms. Domesticating wild plant and animal species for human benefit has occurred many times all over the planet, and has a major impact on the environment, both positive and negative....

and waterfowl

Waterfowl

Waterfowl are certain wildfowl of the order Anseriformes, especially members of the family Anatidae, which includes ducks, geese, and swans....

in addition to the river

River

A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...

panoramas near each end.

The roadway, a National Scenic Byway

National Scenic Byway

A National Scenic Byway is a road recognized by the United States Department of Transportation for its archeological, cultural, historic, natural, recreational, and/or scenic qualities. The program was established by Congress in 1991 to preserve and protect the nation's scenic but often...

and All-American road (one of only 27 in the U.S.), is free of trucks and is a popular (but not the quickest) way to move by motor vehicle between the three points, especially for tourists. Near the James River

James River (Virginia)

The James River is a river in the U.S. state of Virginia. It is long, extending to if one includes the Jackson River, the longer of its two source tributaries. The James River drains a catchment comprising . The watershed includes about 4% open water and an area with a population of 2.5 million...

and York River

York River (Virginia)

The York River is a navigable estuary, approximately long, in eastern Virginia in the United States. It ranges in width from at its head to near its mouth on the west side of Chesapeake Bay. Its watershed drains an area including portions of 17 counties of the coastal plain of Virginia north...

ends of the parkway, there are several pull-offs. It is toll-free, and has moderate speed limits.

History

The Colonial Parkway took over 25 years to create from concept to completion. In 1930, a survey of the area was undertaken by National Park Service

National Park Service

The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...

(NPS) engineering and landscape architect professionals for a 500 feet (152.4 m) right-of-way

Easement

An easement is a certain right to use the real property of another without possessing it.Easements are helpful for providing pathways across two or more pieces of property or allowing an individual to fish in a privately owned pond...

for the parkway.

Between Yorktown and Williamsburg, the initial proposals called for the parkway to follow an inland route along colonial-era roads. However, instead, it was decided to align the road along the York River through U.S. Navy land to avoid grade crossings, extensive tangents, modern intrusions and other "visual junk". This land included the Naval Weapons Station

Naval Weapons Station Yorktown

Naval Weapons Station Yorktown is a United States Navy base in York County, James City County, and Newport News in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia...

(Yorktown) and the former E.I. DuPont

DuPont

E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company , commonly referred to as DuPont, is an American chemical company that was founded in July 1802 as a gunpowder mill by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. DuPont was the world's third largest chemical company based on market capitalization and ninth based on revenue in 2009...

explosives factory and town complex at Penniman, Virginia

Penniman, Virginia

Penniman was an unincorporated town in northwestern York County, on the south bank of the York River six miles northeast of Williamsburg in the Virginia Peninsula area of the Hampton Roads region of southeastern Virginia in the United States...

which later became known as Cheatham Annex.

Following the parkway

Parkway

The term parkway has several distinct principal meanings and numerous synonyms around the world, for either a type of landscaped area or a type of road.Type of landscaped area:...

concept of Calvert Vaux

Calvert Vaux

Calvert Vaux , was an architect and landscape designer. He is best remembered as the co-designer , of New York's Central Park....

and Frederick Law Olmsted

Frederick Law Olmsted

Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...

, designers of New York City's Central Park

Central Park

Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...

, the planners of the Colonial Parkway used a model of a limited access highway with broad sweeping curves, set in a meticulously landscaped right-of-way devoid of commercial development. These features, derived from 19th-century Romantic

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

landscape theories, created a safer and more pleasant drive compared to the increasingly congested urban strips. In addition to protecting the views, culvert

Culvert

A culvert is a device used to channel water. It may be used to allow water to pass underneath a road, railway, or embankment. Culverts can be made of many different materials; steel, polyvinyl chloride and concrete are the most common...

headwalls and parkway underpasses were clad in antiquated "Virginia-style" brick laid in English and Flemish bonds to promote a "colonial-era" effect. Design features such as molded coping

Coping (architecture)

Coping , consists of the capping or covering of a wall.A splayed or wedge coping slopes in a single direction; a saddle coping slopes to either side of a central high point....

rails, string courses and buttress

Buttress

A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall...

es followed the historical prototypes found at Williamsburg.

The land for ten miles (16 km) of the route between Yorktown and Williamsburg was given to the NPS free of charge, and construction began on first on this portion. By 1937, the road was completed to just outside Williamsburg. There was some debate over the routing in the Williamsburg area, and eventually a tunnel

Tunnel

A tunnel is an underground passageway, completely enclosed except for openings for egress, commonly at each end.A tunnel may be for foot or vehicular road traffic, for rail traffic, or for a canal. Some tunnels are aqueducts to supply water for consumption or for hydroelectric stations or are sewers...

was selected.

The tunnel under the historic district of Colonial Williamsburg was completed by 1942, but opening was delayed by World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

and some structural and flooding problems. It finally opened for traffic in 1949, leaving only the Williamsburg-to-Jamestown section to be built.

During the early 1950s in anticipation of the 1957 350th anniversary of Jamestown's founding, the park finalized plans to complete the parkway, still following the high design standards. Several long fills were required near the James River and workers rebuilt the isthmus

Isthmus

An isthmus is a narrow strip of land connecting two larger land areas usually with waterforms on either side.Canals are often built through isthmuses where they may be particularly advantageous to create a shortcut for marine transportation...

to Jamestown Island which had been severed by weather since the colonial days when Jamestown was actually a peninsula

Peninsula

A peninsula is a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides but connected to mainland. In many Germanic and Celtic languages and also in Baltic, Slavic and Hungarian, peninsulas are called "half-islands"....

. Other major improvements at the southern terminus included development of Jamestown Island as part of the Colonial National Historical Park and the adjacent Jamestown Festival Park, which was largely state-funded by Virginia.

On April 27, 1957, the Colonial Parkway was opened for traffic along the entire route between Yorktown and Jamestown. Queen Elizabeth II

Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...

of Great Britain and her consort Prince Philip

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh is the husband of Elizabeth II. He is the United Kingdom's longest-serving consort and the oldest serving spouse of a reigning British monarch....

made a state visit that year on October 16. It has enjoyed popular use by tourists to one of the world's most-visited areas ever since.

The Colonial Parkway has been carefully maintained. This also has not been an easy task. Priority is given wetlands ecosystems and the natural growth as well as wildlife and waterfowl preservation. The scenic shoreline areas along the two major tidal rivers present extra challenges with many bridges and fills. Occasionally, East Coast hurricanes such as Hurricane Isabel

Hurricane Isabel

Hurricane Isabel was the costliest and deadliest hurricane in the 2003 Atlantic hurricane season. The ninth named storm, fifth hurricane, and second major hurricane of the season, Isabel formed near the Cape Verde Islands from a tropical wave on September 6 in the tropical Atlantic Ocean...

in 2003 inflict significant natural damage, and require closure of portions of the Parkway for repairs.

It has also been necessary to zealously protect the Parkway from commercial intrusions, especially as the Virginia Peninsula

Virginia Peninsula

The Virginia Peninsula is a peninsula in southeast Virginia, USA, bounded by the York River, James River, Hampton Roads and Chesapeake Bay.Hampton Roads is the common name for the metropolitan area that surrounds the body of water of the same name...

's resident population has more than tripled since 1930, and tourism has greatly increased. Improvements such as the overpass crossings of busy Interstate 64

Interstate 64 in Virginia

In the U.S. state of Virginia, Interstate 64 runs east–west through the middle of the state from West Virginia to the Hampton Roads region, a total of . It is notable for crossing the mouth of the harbor of Hampton Roads on the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, the first bridge-tunnel to...

and upgrades of State Route 199

Virginia State Route 199

Virginia State Route 199 is a primary state highway in the U.S. state of Virginia. Known for most of its length as Humelsine Parkway, the state highway runs from Interstate 64 and SR 646 in Lightfoot to SR 641 near Williamsburg. SR 199 forms a western loop of Williamsburg in York and James...

, a semi-circular Williamsburg beltway, and U.S. Route 17

U.S. Route 17 in Virginia

U.S. Route 17 is a part of the U.S. Highway System that runs from Punta Gorda, Florida to Winchester, Virginia. In Virginia, the U.S. Highway runs from the North Carolina state line in Chesapeake north to its northern terminus at US 11, US 50, and US 522 in Winchester. US 17 is a major highway...

at Yorktown, all major traffic arteries, were accomplished in a manner so as to be virtually unnoticeable to travelers along the Parkway. Even the CSX Transportation

CSX Transportation

CSX Transportation operates a Class I railroad in the United States known as the CSX Railroad. It is the main subsidiary of the CSX Corporation. The company is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, and owns approximately 21,000 route miles...

railroad line which crosses with Amtrak

Amtrak

The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak , is a government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track". It is headquartered at Union...

service to Williamsburg and Newport News

Newport News, Virginia

Newport News is an independent city located in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of Virginia. It is at the southeastern end of the Virginia Peninsula, on the north shore of the James River extending southeast from Skiffe's Creek along many miles of waterfront to the river's mouth at Newport News...

is carefully shielded from view.

Traffic rules

The Colonial Parkway is free of trucks and commercial vehicles except passenger-carrying buses. The lower speed limits and few exits combine to help preserve the road for tourists and protect wildlife by making it an unattractive short-cut for most local traffic and commuters. The unmarked pavement is made of rounded "river gravel

River gravel

River gravel is a name given to gravel composed of small pieces of rounded stone of various colors, usually no larger than a large coin. It is named for the effect of many years of rounding of the edges of the stones due to a flow of water over it, as often takes place in a river...

" set in a concrete-mix, providing an unusual earth tone color. Since the Parkway is intended primarily for sightseeing, and only secondarily as a through route to the historic points, there are many pull-offs with markers giving brief descriptions of the view.

The Parkway has no painted traffic lane-marking lines (presumably to enhance the historical feeling). Some stretches are posted "Pass With Care", but it is important to be vigilant for oncoming traffic which may also pass and share the center of the roadway. The more popular pull-offs are near the James River

James River (Virginia)

and York River

York River (Virginia)

ends of the parkway, where there are panoramic views across each river. The moderate speed limits and safety (for all creatures) are well-protected by National Park Service law enforcement rangers. Despite a federal policy instituted late in the 20th century of requiring user fees at many National Parks and Monuments, the Colonial Parkway has remained toll-free.

On Saturday, November 26, 1977, Law Enforcement Ranger Gregory Burdine was killed in the line of duty while in pursuit of a vehicle on the Parkway. During the pursuit, Burdine's patrol vehicle crashed into two trees at an estimated speed of 100 m.p.h. A suspect was later arrested and convicted of involuntary manslaughter and evading a police officer, and sentenced to 15 months in prison.http://www.odmp.org/officer/2502-park-ranger-gregory-scott-burdine

Jamestown

The western end of the parkway begins at Jamestown

Jamestown, Virginia

, where the colony was also begun in 1607 on the shore of the James River. Some visitors begin their experience by approaching the entire area from the south via State Route 10 to Surry

Surry, Virginia

Surry is an incorporated town in Surry County, Virginia, United States. The population was 262 at the 2000 census...

, and then across the James River and arriving by water on the Jamestown Ferry

Jamestown Ferry

The Jamestown Ferry is a free automobile and bus ferry service across a navigable portion of the James River in Virginia...

. Passengers can get out of their automobiles during the 15-minute ride and usually see the Jamestown Island much as the first colonists may have approached it. In fact, the replicas of Christopher Newport

Christopher Newport

Christopher Newport was an English seaman and privateer. He is best known as the captain of the Susan Constant, the largest of three ships which carried settlers for the Virginia Company in 1607 on the way to find the settlement at Jamestown in the Virginia Colony, which became the first permanent...

's three tiny ships, Susan Constant
Susan Constant
Susan Constant, captained by Christopher Newport, was the largest of three ships of the English Virginia Company on the 1606-1607 voyage that resulted in the founding of Jamestown in the new Colony of Virginia.-History:Susan Constant was rated at 120 tons. Her keel length is estimated at 55.2 feet...

, Godspeed
Godspeed (ship)
Godspeed, under Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, was one of the three ships on the 1606-1607 voyage to the New World for the English Virginia Company of London. The journey resulted in the founding of Jamestown in the new Colony of Virginia.-History:All 39 passengers and 13 sailors she carried on that...

, and Discovery
Discovery (1602 ship)
Discovery was a 20-ton "fly-boat" of the British East India Company, launched before 1602.Discovery was the smallest of three ships that were led by Captain Christopher Newport on the voyage that resulted in the founding of Jamestown in the new Colony of Virginia in 1607...

, are docked near the northern ferry landing.

Williamsburg

The middle point of the Parkway is Williamsburg

Williamsburg, Virginia

, where the capital of the colony was moved from Jamestown in 1699. The parkway tunnel

Tunnel

s under the historic district, a good example of the care taken to preserve the ambiance of the restored area. The tunnel under the Colonial Williamsburg historic district was not originally planned. It arose as an innovative solution over two potential surface road alignments, each of which had significant opposition. Largely due to the 20th century preservation efforts of the Reverend Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin, rector of Bruton Parish Church

Bruton Parish Church

Bruton Parish Church is located in the restored area of Colonial Williamsburg in Williamsburg, Virginia, USA. It was established in 1674 in the Virginia Colony, and remains an active Episcopal parish.-History of Bruton Parish Church:...

, and the generosity of Standard Oil

Standard Oil

Standard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational...

heir John D. Rockefeller Jr., today Colonial Williamsburg

Colonial Williamsburg

Colonial Williamsburg is the private foundation representing the historic district of the city of Williamsburg, Virginia, USA. The district includes buildings dating from 1699 to 1780 which made colonial Virginia's capital. The capital straddled the boundary of the original shires of Virginia —...

is a large living museum of early American life. It has dozens of restored and recreated buildings and reenactors. It is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world.

The Visitors Center (right off the Colonial Parkway) features a short movie and is an excellent place to start. It is also a good place to park automobiles, which are restricted from the restored area. Wheelchair-accessible shuttle bus

Bus

A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...

service is provided from the Visitors Center. From the Williamsburg exits of the Parkway, commercial areas of lodging, fuel, food, etc. are easily accessible as well.

Yorktown

The eastern end of the Parkway is Yorktown

Yorktown, Virginia

where General Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington

George Washington

George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...

in 1781, ending the American Revolution

American Revolution

The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

. There are two large visitor centers, each with a different theme, several extensive battlefield drives, and a waterfront area.

The parkway was closed through Navy lands near Yorktown during World War II

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 U.S. Navy agreed to halt all transports on the parkway and help in the restoration of the landscape destroyed during three years of wartime use.

External links

Colonial National Historical Park website You can plan your visit on-line.
NPS Colonial Parkway webpage
Virginia Roads - Colonial Parkway (Steve Alpert)
VDOT Jamestown Ferry website