1937 Map of Elkton

About this map

Massanutten Mountain and the Shenandoah River define this 1930s landscape, captured just as the Shenandoah National Park and George Washington National Forest were reshaping the region. The map documents a transition from an agrarian and industrial river valley to a federally managed wilderness, showing Skyline Drive traversing the eastern ridges. Along the South Fork Shenandoah River, the infrastructure of the era is visible at the Harrisonburg Power Plant and the rail corridors of the Norfolk and Western and Chesapeake and Western. For local historians, the sheet preserves a dense network of mountain communities and institutions, including the Blue Ridge Industrial School, the Simmons Gap Mission, and numerous rural schoolhouses like Dovel Sch and Rocky Bar Sch that served the area before larger consolidations.