FRONT ROYAL -- The Warren Heritage Society is honoring the 75th anniversary of Shenandoah National Park with a new exhibit chronicling the toil of the people who brought the park to fruition. The exhibit tells the story of not just the park's creators, but also the local residents who made great sacrifices for the park to be established, said Patrick Farris, executive director of the Warren Heritage Society. The Warren Heritage Society exhibit is both a celebration and commemoration, Farris said, intended to give a full presentation of how the park came to be. "The creation of the park itself was not without pain," Farris said. The park's scenic mountain views and myriad hiking trails are now open to the public, but the land once consisted of privately owned farms and small communities. Numerous families were relocated from their centuries-old homeplaces in the mountains so Shenandoah National Park could be born, Farris said. "It is so much more than just acreage -- many people had lived on the land they had to sacrifice for generations, not for a few years, but dating well back 150 years or more," Farris said. The state government worked with many families to acquire the land, Farris said, but some properties were condemned and then taken by the state through the use of eminent domain. Residents were moved off the mountains to resettlement communities scattered across the region, including one in nearby Flint Hill in Rappahannock County. Families often had to leave behind family cemeteries, some of which can still be seen from the main roads of the park, Farris said. Plans for acquiring land for the park accelerated when President Franklin D. Roosevelt needed to find jobs for members of the newly created Civilian Conservation Corps, Farris said. The exhibit features a CCC member uniform from the short-lived Dismal Hollow Camp. Warren Heritage Society archivist Judy Pfeiffer spent four months culling private collections and archives to produce the exhibit. "We just collect and collect and collect, and then someone says, 'Go,'" Pfeiffer said. The exhibit also highlights some of the original homes and buildings -- such as the historic Simpson House and Belmont Winery -- that were demolished in order to create the wilderness for the park. Warren County led a funding drive, and residents donated $6 for 1 acre of park land to help the state raise money for the park, Pfeiffer said. The exhibit includes a list of donor names, and visitors are encouraged to search for their ancestors and place a star by the name, Pfeiffer said. The book "Answer at once: Letters of Mountain Families in Shenandoah National Park, 1934-1938," will be also be available at the Ivy Lodge Gift Shop on Chester Street. The book, a collection of letters written by families whose land was condemned for the park, was edited by Katrina M. Powell. The Shenandoah National Park and Skyline Drive exhibit will be on display through summer 2011. For more information visit www.warrenheritagesociety.org, or call 636-1446. FOR PICS ETC http://www.nvdaily.com/news/2010/05/shenandoah-national-park-honored-with-new-exhibit.php