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Reinterpreting Cultural History:

Reinterpreting Cultural History:. Visualizing a Former Appalachian Landscape Using GIS. Joel M. Staub The Pennsylvania State University jms837@psu.edu West Virginia GIS Conference May 10, 2004. Visualizing an Appalachian Landscape. Background Study Region Spatial Data

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Reinterpreting Cultural History:

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  1. Reinterpreting Cultural History: Visualizing a Former Appalachian Landscape Using GIS Joel M. Staub The Pennsylvania State University jms837@psu.edu West Virginia GIS Conference May 10, 2004

  2. Visualizing an Appalachian Landscape • Background • Study Region • Spatial Data • Settlement Patterns • Spatial Relationships to Rivers/Streams • Spatial Relationships to Schools • Land-Use Activities

  3. Blue Ridge Mountains…

  4. …Shenandoah Homesteads

  5. …Shenandoah Homesteads

  6. Study Region • Shenandoah NP • The Old Rag Hollows • Corbin, Nicholson, and Weakley Shenandoah NP and the Old Rag Region Corbin, Nicholson, and Weakley Hollows

  7. Spatial Data • 1934 U.S.G.S. Topographic Map • Five Aerial Photographs, October 1937 • 31 Stitched DEMs • 27 at 10 meters • 4 at 30 meters

  8. Settlement Patterns

  9. Settlement Patterns Dendritic/Fan- Shaped Linear Shaped

  10. Settlement Patterns

  11. Settlement Patterns Proximity of Homes to Rivers: • -- Average distances:* • Corbin = 527 ft. • Nicholson = 186 ft. • Weakley = 507 ft. • Total = 350 ft. * 1/16th of a mile = 330 ft.

  12. Spatial Relationships to Schools • Low educational attainment despite the number of schools present in hollows • Intermittent school terms • Children kept at home to do chores • Location! The Hull School in the 1930s

  13. Location of Schools

  14. Travel Distances to Schools • Transportation routes to two different schools: • “A” = ~1.8 miles • “B” = ~1.5 miles • “C” = ~1.7 miles • Topography determined distances to school • Educational attainment?

  15. Land-Use Activities • Agriculture • Orcharding • Pasture

  16. Land-Use Activities

  17. Land-Use Activities 3 acres 27 rows 266 trees 2 acres 14 rows 166 trees 1 acre 7 rows 68 trees

  18. Land-Use Activities Land-Use Activities

  19. Land-Use Activities Orchards Pasture Agriculture

  20. Conclusions • Interpreting cultural landscapes that park officials until the 1990s neglected to acknowledge • Used GIS to re-create the mountain hollows • Compared this cultural landscape to patterns of the new resettlement communities

  21. “…within another decade a new era will have begun in these mountains and the day of the Blue Ridge mountaineer will have passed.” --Margaret Hitch, 1931

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