Evening star., 1952-08-10
Fabulous Mr.. Pollock
A Yankee, Sold U. 5.
On Plan for Park
By George Kennedy
Sfar Stoff Correspondent

StoI StoIt correspondent
LURAY, Va, Aug. 9.-Skyline
drive is not all there Is to Shen-
andoah National Park.
More than 1.3 million people
entered the park last year. a figure
that will increase to is million
in 1852. (June, 1852. alone had
10000 more than June. 195D.
This is much larger than the
attendance figures of the Oldest
and most famous of the national
parks. Yellowstone, which has
about / million sightseers year.
The motorist who includes Sky
line drive on his vacation tour
pauses at the lookout points along
the Blue Ridge for the magnifi-
cent views of the Shenandoah
Valley and the wooded piedmont
to the east and drives on. He
misses an opportunity to get back
to nature in one of the rare in
stances in the East where bits of
the forest have been preserved
in glens full of the sound Of cas-
cading streams.
If he stays overnight at Sky
land, one of the three cara
vansaries along the drive. he is
surprised to learn that the rates
at this mountain resort of cot
tages, recreation and dining halls.
horseback trails and horses, are
lower than those charged for
tourist cabins along the main
highways. And he will be sur
prised to learn that Skyland is
much older than the drive. This
is Skyland'S 59th year. It was
started in 1894 as a tent colony
by q fabulous character who
owned the mountain, George Free
man Pollock.
Splendid Oak Specimens.
National Park Ranger Tom
Norris. who knows and loves the
mountains and the mountain peo-
pie, guided us through the park.
The first thing to be seen is White
Oak Canyon, where there are
splendid specimens with the low
est branches about 40 feet up.
And there is slender stream that
falls 100 feet down rocky chute
with the grace of a dancing girl.
The fishing camp Herbert
Hoover built on the Rapidan is |
within the park. It is used by the
Boy Scouts of the Washington
area.
The Hoover camp is in a dark
hemlock forest. Two little streams,
Laurel Run and Mill Run, come
together right in front Of the
ex-President's cabin.
There are a few mementoes in
the cabin, some of the peculiar
gifts people send to Presidents;
a chair made like a Snowshoe, a
pair of shoes made of oak splints.
But the log across the Rapidan,
where Mr.. Hoover and Ramsey
Macdonald sat and discussed dis
armament in those days in which
almost everybody thought the last
war was the last war, has long
since been swept away.
Marker at Site of Killing.
'Now I'm going to take you to
Tanners Ridge" said the ranger,
''to see one of the old mountaineers
who were given life tenure when
the Government took over. Four
hundred and sixty-five families
were moved. Twenty were allowed
to remain. Five of those are left"
We continued down the road /
toward the valley with Naked
Creek on our left and the ranger
explained the glen economy. At
Naked Creek as in other inhabited
glens at the foot of the ridges,
the economy was based on three |.
establishments clustered about
the final fall Of the stream-the
best place to get waterpower.
They were the grist-mill the saw
mill and the tannery. The people
of the glen received almost no
money for their raw products. The /
tannery would pay for hides and
tan bark by giving them leather
from which they would make their
own boots. The mill would pay
for the corn with few bags of
corn meal. The saw-mill would
pay cash for timber which could
only be delivered in the spring
freshets.
AS late as the early 1930s
when Uncle Sam took over
one fourth of the families in that
section of the Blue Ridge were
operating on a cash income and
expenditures of less than 500 a |
year.
MIR. Pollock's father was from
Salem, Mass, and, together with
a Stephen M. Allen of Boston, he
had controlling interest in cop
per mine on the west side of the
Blue Ridge which was worked
without success before the Civil
War. AS boy in Washington. Mr..
Pollock would run away from
school to hunt and fish. His father
finally told him about his copper
mine property. which he had never
seen, and suggested the boy go
there to see if it had any value.
Mr.. Pollock went to Luray and
climbed the mountain with a
guide. When he saw the view
from the top he raved and he
shouted. He devoted the rest of
and developing it as resort.
his life to obtaining the property
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