Several of the most impressive building projects associated with the Park Service today resulted from Mission 66 efforts. The Gateway Arch, designed by architect Eero Saarinen in 1949 for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial National Historic Site in St. Louis, remained unfinished until Mission 66 funding permitted its completion. Another significant Mission 66 project is the Blue Ridge Parkway, a 469-mile scenic road running through Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee. Only about one-third of the total planned distance had been finished when work stopped in the 1940s. Mission 66 for Gettysburg National Military Park.
Construction is an important element of the program.
Under this program, outmoded and inadequate facilities will be replaced with physical improvements adequate for expected demands but so designed and located as to reduce the impact of public use on valuable and destructible features. It will provide both facilities and personnel for visitor services of the quality and quantity that the public is entitled to expect in its National Park System. It is intended to assure the fullest possible degree of protection, both to visitors and resources.