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On May 4, 1934, the Associated Press ran a story about a visit to Corbin Hollow by several dignitaries from Washington, D.C., several of whom were staying at President Herbert Hoover's Rapidan Camp several miles to the south. This story is typical of the news coverage devoted to the people of these mountain communities who were about to be removed to make way for the newly created Shenandoah National Park.

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First Moving Day Faced by People of Corbin Hollow. Squalid Mountain Community Would Have Better Place Near Mission.
Associated Press
May 4, 1934

The families of Corbin Hollow--a community of perennial starvation and penniless squalor within a dozen miles of President Hoover's Rapidan camp--are about to come into something more than their own.

A plan to move the community, rooted in this one spot since the Revolutionary War, to a new section of the mountains adjoining a church mission has been virtually agreed upon between Federal and State officials.

Mixed up in the strange story are officials of the National Park Service, a Washington physician and a lone woman social worker, Miss Miriam Sizer. Secretary Wilbur rode into the Hollow over the week end, accompanied by Horace M. Albright, director of the National Park Service; Dr. Lyman Sexton of Washington and Miss Sizer.

Corbin Hollow is within the limits of the new Shenandoah National Park. In order not only to aid the Corbins and the Nicholsons, but also to clear the park, the plan of providing a sizable plot for them near a mountain mission was advanced. Wilbur looked on it with favor.

"No matter what is done with these people," he said, "the will be better off. They have nothing to lose."

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