PHOTO ESSAY LEFT: Peaks of Otter Lodge (MP 85.6). While the Peaks of Otter area became a traveler destination in the 1830s with the building of the Polly Woods Ordinary, it was not until 1964 that the Peaks of Otter Lodge and Restaurant were built next to Abbott Lake. RIGHT: The Jesse Brown Cabin (MP 272.5). The cabin got a new roof in 2020, updating a building erected in about 1840 about a half mile from where it now stands; it is one of the oldest structures on the parkway. Jesse Brown was a working tenant of Col. James Horton. BELOW: Twenty Minute Cliff (MP 19.0). The parkway gets credit for both timelessness and timeliness at this spot. In 1953 (inset) as now, the tiny commmunity of White Rock could use the rock-face overlook for timing in May and June, as the sun drops behind the mountains 20 minutes after sunlight first hits the rock face. BLUE RID GE P ARKW A Y THEN & NOW PRESENT-DAY PHOTOGRAPHY BY J. SCOTT GRAHAM I HISTORIC PHOTOS COURTESY NATIONAL PARK SERVICE The 469-mile roadway through the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina was designed, back in the 1930s, to be a timeless experience. In many ways it has remained so. 34 BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COMhttp://www.BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM