Thousands of people once lived in small Blue Ridge mountain communities of houses, farms, churches, businesses, and schools in the area that became Shenandoah National Park, and some families had lived there for more than a hundred years. After Virginia was chosen in the 1920s as the location for a national park, the state legislature in 1928 approved broad use of eminent domain to acquire private land for transfer to the National Park Service, beginning a long and painful process of evictions. Very few residents were willing to leave, government officials gave conflicting information about the fate of homes, property, and cemeteries, and compensation varied widely, with some landowners receiving what they considered fair value while many did not, especially tenants, caretakers, and families without clear title. During the Great Depression, vacated houses were dismantled or burned to prevent others from moving into them, sometimes while families watched, often leaving only rock foundations and stone chimneys. In Rockingham County, the displacement is tied to the wider formation of Shenandoah from parts of eight Virginia counties, as the park's proposed 521,000 acres in 1926 were reduced to 176,429 acres, deeds were submitted by the Commonwealth of Virginia to the U.S. Department of the Interior on December 26, 1935, and the park was dedicated on July 3, 1936. Stones from the circa 1700s Peter Wynat home in Beldor Hollow, which bordered the current park and was spared during the decade-long downsizing of the boundary before burning in 2013, were later used in a chimney symbolizing the enduring spirit of the mountain people and the descendants of displaced Rockingham families.