November 4, 2009
Article Courtesy of Jeff Eason with The Blowing Rocket.
On the eve of the Blue Ridge Parkway’s 75th Anniversary celebration, it is only appropriate that the North Carolina Transportation Hall of Fame honor R. Getty Browning.
After all, without Browning’s foresight and diligence, the Parkway might have very well been built in East Tennessee instead of North Carolina. Browning’s daughter, Harriet Browning Davant, and granddaughter, Dianne Davant Moffitt, traveled from Blowing Rock to Charlotte last week to attend the induction ceremonies for the 2009 class for the North Carolina Transportation’s Hall of Fame.
In addition to R. Getty Browning, the class included John Gray Blount, Champion McDowell Davis, Paul P. Davis, Jack Murdock, H.K. “Zeke” Saunders, Ralph L. Whitehead, and T. Ralph Young Jr.
“My father came to North Carolina from Maryland in 1920 when North Carolina first formed its Highway Commission,” said Harriet Davant in her acceptance tribute to her father at the Hall of Fame induction. “He became chief location and claim engineer and played an important role in the location of many of North Carolina’s highways including the Blue Ridge Parkway.
“It was his presentation before Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes that swayed Ickes and his committee to approve the location of the Parkway through North Carolina rather than Tennessee. It is a well known fact that my father walked every mile of that location himself.”
If his career is any indication, R. Getty Browning was a traveling man who was enchanted by the routes that got him from one place to another. His first jobs included surveying in Maryland, railroad and bridge surveys in West Virginia, and location surveying for highways and bridges for the Maryland Roads Commission in Baltimore.
During the First World War, Browning helped the Navy by developing a large shell manufacturing project and worked to construct twenty 10,000-ton tankers.
In 1921 he moved to Durham, North Carolina and accepted a position as resident engineer when the first major road-building program was established in the Tar Heel State.
In 1925 he was transferred to Raleigh to head up the combined Location and Right-of-Way Department. During this time he was also responsible for preparing the first comprehensive state highway map.
In 1933 he joined the effort to construct the Blue Ridge Parkway and was instrumental in its location through the highlands of North Carolina.
“He viewed the Parkway as a way to exhibit mountain scenery to millions who were not as physically capable as he (a vigorous hiker, hunter and outdoorsman),” stated a biographer from the North Carolina Transportation Hall of Fame. “He personally—by walking the terrain—mapped out a route threading North Carolina’s highest peaks; it was this route that Parkway supporters in North Carolina proposed to federal officials in 1934. It was Browning’s persuasive arguments during federal hearings that resulted in the southern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway being located in North Carolina, not Tennessee.”
“My mom put my dad on a train to Washington to sway FDR’s Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes to put the southern route of the Parkway in North Carolina,” said Harriet Davant. “Dad assembled maps and made a presentation before Ickes’ committee. Then he sent a telegram to Bill Hampton telling that the meeting had gone well and he felt we would get the Parkway.”
According to Harriet Davant, her father went so far as to take Ickes’ wife, Anna, on a tour of western North Carolina to show her how beautiful it was in an effort to seal the deal. This story is confirmed in Anne Whisnant’s book Super-Scenic Motorway: A Blue Ridge Parkway History.
She writes that when “(National Park Service director Arno) Cammerer arrived at the train station to accompany her back to Washington, he found her ‘happily ensconced with Mr. Browning entertaining her with some interesting tales.”
For over three decades, Browning worked to make the Blue Ridge Parkway a feather in North Carolina’s cap. Once the route had been decided, he played a crucial role in getting the Parkway built and was responsible for acquiring all of the land necessary.
Along the way he encountered opposition from the Cherokee Nation, landowners large and small, and Grandfather Mountain owner Hugh Morton. He also had to race against time as many large logging operations were going on in the mountains at the time.
It was only after the federal government purchased land for the Blue Ridge Parkway could easements preventing such logging go into place on either side of the road.
Because of Browning’s dedication in getting the maximum possible right of way for the Parkway in North Carolina, we in the state enjoy a roadway that is much better protected from encroachment than it is in Virginia, where the state’s commitment to the project was not as strong.
“My father was always a great ambassador of North Carolina,” said Harriet Davant. “When North Carolina was known as the ‘Good Roads’ state, he would drive all over the country with a trunk full of maps he had designed. They were titled ‘Variety Vacationland,’ which was perfect for the state because we had the mountains, the piedmont and the ocean.
“Father left the Vacationland maps at chambers of commerce and at national parks all up and down the Eastern Seaboard.”
After growing up in Raleigh with her parents and three older brothers, Harriet Browning attended the Women’s College of UNC in Greensboro before transferring to UNC-Chapel Hill. She married Charles Davant when he was a medical intern in the Navy. After spending time in Charleston, SC and Parris Island, the couple moved to Lenoir.
“One time in the 1950s, there was a polio epidemic in Lenoir,” said Davant. “Polio was all over but not in the mountains. Blowing Rock was like an island.
We had a next-door neighbor in Lenoir who had a 16-year-old son who contracted polio. Our son Bunky was two at the time and I was pregnant with Dianne. So we came up to Blowing Rock. At that time there was a single doctor here, Dr. Warfield. She asked Charlie to see her shut-ins in Blowing Rock after she left for the season.”
Eventually Charles and Harriet Davant made Blowing Rock their permanent home, settling into a house on Chestnut Street. “Dad came up here frequently from Raleigh,” said Davant. “He always loved to visit the mountains.”
It was during one of those visits, in 1966, that R. Getty Browning had a heart attack and died in the arms of his beloved daughter.
For all of his hard work, one of the principal peaks along the Blue Ridge Parkway was named for him. Browning Knob, a mountain rising over 6,000 feet above sea level, can be seen from the Parkway near Waynesville, and a plaque honoring Browning is displayed at a nearby Parkway overlook (at Milepost 451.2) facing Browning Knob.
“He was a modest man but I am sure he would be so proud to have a mountain in western North Carolina named in his memory,” said Harriet Davant. “I am also sure he is very proud to be inducted into the North Carolina Transportation Hall of Fame.”
During the ceremony, the Hall of Fame also gave out a number of annual awards. The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction won the Perley Thomas Award for its website, www.ncbussafety.org., Elbert L. “Eb” Peters Jr. won the Earl E. Congdon Jr. Award, Robert E. “Ed” Frye won the Thomas H. Davis Sr. Award, and the Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority won the Nello L. Teer, Sr. Award.
Founders Awards were awarded to NCDPI Transportation Services Section’s Derek Graham, AAA Carolinas, AAA’s David Parsons and RDU’s John Brantley.
This is the sixth year in existence for the North Carolina Transportation Hall of Fame.
###
 |
Blue Ridge Parkway Photos, Posters, Note Cards, Lithographs and more available from the Blue Ridge Parkway Store. Photos and Prints
For more great products and gift ideas visit the Blue Ridge Parkway Store.
|
Return to News Library
