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Records an interview with Edna Elizabeth Burrill, (née Browning), regarding her uncle, James Burrill, who sold a large parcel of land to the state of Virginia in the 1930s to be used for Shenandoah National Park. Mrs. Burrill is joined by her two daughters, Mary Ellen Jennings and Gladys Peaches Burrill, both of Luray, Va. James Burrill was born in Leeds, England, around 1850 and emigrated to the United States as a young man. Burrill soon established himself in America and sent for his wife Ellen, also of Leeds, to join him. Over the next thirty years, James Burrill would achieve great success in a number of business opportunities which enabled him to act as benefactor for numerous civic and commercial ventures in Page County. Mrs. Burrill recalls her uncle's sale of land, estimated at 4,200 acres, to the state at prices ranging from $2.50 to $10.00 dollars per acre. Also mentioned is James Burrill's contribution to the establishment of the Deford Tannery, (later known as Virginia Oak Tannery), and the founding of Christ Episcopal Church of Luray.

Records an interview with Louise Long, (née Varner), whose family owned several tracts of grazing land in Rappahannock County, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, prior to the founding of Shenandoah National Park. Describes the extensive cattle industry existing in the Shenandoah Valley from colonial times until the late 1930s. Mrs. Long and her husband, Arthur Long, Jr., oversaw the annual movement of hundreds of head of cattle from surrounding Valley communities to their fertile summer pastures in the mountains.