New River Gorge National River is now a National Park and Preserve

[TheGrassGuy]

It was part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, last December.

Kinda late memo, but don't know how this seems to have flown above all the roadgeeks' heads.

[vdeane]

I'm pretty sure I've seen it posted about here before.

[webny99]

Huh. I was not aware of that, so if it had been mentioned, I guess I missed it.
I visited once in 2013, and it was great. I'd like to go back sometime.

[ozarkman417]

I suppose this leaves the Buffalo River of the Ozark Plateaus as the only National River.

We can now add to the list of interstates that enter national parks: I-64.

I-64 technically enters the New River Gorge National River Park and Preserve, and the speed limit is 70 there (trucks 45), adding to the list of interstates.

[TheGrassGuy]

I suppose this leaves the Buffalo River of the Ozark Plateaus as the only National River.

We can now add to the list of interstates that enter national parks: I-64.

I-64 technically enters the New River Gorge National River Park and Preserve, and the speed limit is 70 there (trucks 45), adding to the list of interstates.

Here, the park and preserve are two separate entities; does it enter the national park, or the preserve?

[Dirt Roads]

We can now add to the list of interstates that enter national parks: I-64.

Here, the park and preserve are two separate entities; does it enter the national park, or the preserve?

I doubt that I-64 is in the National Park, as only 10% of the National River was bumped up to park status.  I-64 drops into the gorge and crosses the New River just above flood level in the southern section just downstream of Sandstone Falls.  Then I-64 crosses the Glade Creek Gorge on a spectacular bridge, but its a fair piece away from the New River itself.

Hunting rights are a big part of the issue, and often necessary in unpopulated areas of the Appalachias.  The 90% remaining in the National Preserve still allow for hunting.

[vdeane]

Huh. I was not aware of that, so if it had been mentioned, I guess I missed it.
I visited once in 2013, and it was great. I'd like to go back sometime.

Found it - it was in the West Virginia thread on the Mid-Atlantic board.
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=13715.msg2556844#msg2556844

[webny99]

Huh. I was not aware of that, so if it had been mentioned, I guess I missed it.
I visited once in 2013, and it was great. I'd like to go back sometime.

Found it - it was in the West Virginia thread on the Mid-Atlantic board.
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=13715.msg2556844#msg2556844

(I actually don't usually check the regional boards unless something in "recent posts" looks interesting )

[Dirt Roads]

It still amazes me that the New River has become worthy of National Park status.  Back in the 1960s, I remember the gorge still having pockets of working and abandoned coal mines, along with a patchwork of forest clear-cutting.  Soon after the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was completed at Hawks Nest in 1873, lumbering and coal mining turned the entire gorge into an industrial complex stretching from Hinton down to the Kanawha River, pegged at slightly over 60 miles on the railroad.  By the end of the 19th century, there were a nearly continuous strip of buildings and structures covering almost the entire canyon on both sides.

During the mid-1970s, we spent most of our summers trekking to the New River Gorge Bridge during its construction.  By then, the forest was already beginning to recover.  And when I worked in the gorge during the summer of 1987, there were only a few working coal mines remaining (plus the occasional ghost towns like Kaymoor, Sewell, Nuttallburg and Thurmond).  At that time, there was only one resident living in the gorge north of Meadow Creek.  She was up in her 80's, and the railroaders looked after her well-being until the time of her death.  The forest is incredible today, as it is over much of the state.  But underneath it all is a maze of all sorts of abandoned metal and bricks and concrete thingys.

[TheGrassGuy]

It still amazes me that the New River has become worthy of National Park status.  Back in the 1960s, I remember the gorge still having pockets of working and abandoned coal mines, along with a patchwork of forest clear-cutting.  Soon after the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was completed at Hawks Nest in 1873, lumbering and coal mining turned the entire gorge into an industrial complex stretching from Hinton down to the Kanawha River, pegged at slightly over 60 miles on the railroad.  By the end of the 19th century, there were a nearly continuous strip of buildings and structures covering almost the entire canyon on both sides.

During the mid-1970s, we spent most of our summers trekking to the New River Gorge Bridge during its construction.  By then, the forest was already beginning to recover.  And when I worked in the gorge during the summer of 1987, there were only a few working coal mines remaining (plus the occasional ghost towns like Kaymoor, Sewell, Nuttallburg and Thurmond).  At that time, there was only one resident living in the gorge north of Meadow Creek.  She was up in her 80's, and the railroaders looked after her well-being until the time of her death.  The forest is incredible today, as it is over much of the state.  But underneath it all is a maze of all sorts of abandoned metal and bricks and concrete thingys.

Why is Gateway Arch a national park?

[Rothman]

It still amazes me that the New River has become worthy of National Park status.  Back in the 1960s, I remember the gorge still having pockets of working and abandoned coal mines, along with a patchwork of forest clear-cutting.  Soon after the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was completed at Hawks Nest in 1873, lumbering and coal mining turned the entire gorge into an industrial complex stretching from Hinton down to the Kanawha River, pegged at slightly over 60 miles on the railroad.  By the end of the 19th century, there were a nearly continuous strip of buildings and structures covering almost the entire canyon on both sides.

During the mid-1970s, we spent most of our summers trekking to the New River Gorge Bridge during its construction.  By then, the forest was already beginning to recover.  And when I worked in the gorge during the summer of 1987, there were only a few working coal mines remaining (plus the occasional ghost towns like Kaymoor, Sewell, Nuttallburg and Thurmond).  At that time, there was only one resident living in the gorge north of Meadow Creek.  She was up in her 80's, and the railroaders looked after her well-being until the time of her death.  The forest is incredible today, as it is over much of the state.  But underneath it all is a maze of all sorts of abandoned metal and bricks and concrete thingys.

Why is Gateway Arch a national park?

Because Congress designated it one just a couple of years ago.  Before then, it was a National Memorial.

[SP Cook]

Why is Gateway Arch a national park?

It is the "humpty dumpty" line.  It is such because I say it is such.  If it wanted Congress could make a pile of old tires in Nebraska a national park.  But I get where you are going.  Most people when they think of a "national park" (not the dozen other designations under the NPS) think of a seriously unique area of undeveloped natural beauty.  Not something like the Gateway Arch, which is a man-made urban work of monumental art.

Looking at the list, these would be my "why" national parks:

New River Gorge.  The main topic of the thread.  It is, rather typical, piece of Appalachian topography, remarkable only in that it has whitewater (not totally unique) and they built a bridge over it.

Gateway Arch.  As discussed.

Cuyahoga Valley.  See New River Gorge, above.  An ordinary post-industrial rust belt Great Lakes basin river, with some historical stuff.

Dry Tortugas.  Should be a national historic site.

Hot Springs.  More or less a commercial, urban, spa. 

[TheGrassGuy]

"humpty dumpty"

Don't get the reference at all

[GaryV]

"humpty dumpty"

Don't get the reference at all

Kids these days. Doesn't anyone read Lewis Carroll?

[kkt]

"humpty dumpty"

Don't get the reference at all

Kids these days. Doesn't anyone read Lewis Carroll?

"When I use a word, it means just what I want it to mean.  It's a matter of who is to be the master, that's all."  That's just from memory and probably not exact.