![]() ![]() 'We've said from the very beginning that we think the road has the appropriate name,' Shuler told The Associated Press. Charles Taylor, the powerful Republican incumbent Shuler ousted earlier this month. And that likely means the end of a project that was backed by Rep. The road would be a replacement for a state highway flooded by construction of Fontana Dam in the 1940s. Heath Shuler, an incoming Democratic congressman who will represent far western North Carolina, opposes spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build the road through an undeveloped section of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. After an election that removed its chief backer from the halls of Congress, the Road to Nowhere may once and for all be going nowhere. Shuler’s election means end of quest to finish ‘Road to Nowhere’ By TIM WHITMIRE Associated Press Writer CHARLOTTE, N.C. Hogue said she hopes a National Park Service study of whether to finish the road will continue despite Shuler’s opposition. ![]() "Heath Shuler should be ashamed of himself," said Linda Hogue, a leader in the North Shore Road Association and an organizer of the boat trips. The National Park Service now pays to transport those people across Fontana Lake by boat for their annual cemetery decoration days. Supporters of the road have continued to lobby for its completion, saying it would give residents forced out by construction of the dam access to family cemeteries and homesteads. Only seven of 42 miles were completed before high costs and environmental concerns halted construction in 1972. ![]() A 1943 agreement between North Carolina and the federal government included a promise to build it, provided Congress appropriated the money. He grew up in Bryson City, at the eastern end of the planned road, which would to follow the north shore of Fontana Lake. The appropriation to build that road is now a dead issue." "We’ve said from the very beginning that we think the road has the appropriate name," Shuler told The Associated Press. The road would be a replacement for a state highway flooded by construction of Fontana Dam in the 1940s.Īnd that likely means the end of a project that was backed by Rep. With no road, a consolation prize of $58 million was agreed to be paid to Swain County.CHARLOTTE, N.C. This small section, still there today, is about seven miles long and ends abruptly at a quarter-mile tunnel in the middle of the park, in the middle of nowhere. The people were moved, the water rose, and by the 1970s-30 years after the original agreement was made-only a small portion of the road was built. The road was to be cut through the newly created Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It was intended to not only allow people to make the journey but to provide ongoing access to their ancestral lands and cemeteries. Part of the dam deal, to assuage those being displaced, was to build a road from Bryson City to Deals Gap along a route north of the river. Where there had previously been small towns, villages and homesteads along the north side of the river, there was now Fontana Lake, and people who lived and worked there were either bought out or moved off. Who didn’t benefit were the flooded-out communities along the banks of the rising water. ![]()
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