Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox NRHP

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park is located in the District of Columbia and the state of Maryland. The park was established in 1961 as a National Monument by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to preserve the neglected remains of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and many of its original structures.

The canal and towpath trail extends along the Potomac River from the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C., to Cumberland, Maryland, a distance of Template:Convert. In 2013, the path was designated as the first section of U.S. Bicycle Route 50.<ref name="USRN 2013-10">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="USBR50MD-23TN">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> With over four million visitors in 2022, it is the most-visited unit that is designated a national historical park of the National Park Service.

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}

The Cumberland basin at the canal's terminus in 2013. This area has been changed drastically and is almost unrecognizable compared to how it was during the canal's operating days

Construction on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (also known as "the Grand Old Ditch" or the "C&O Canal") began in 1828 and ended in 1850 when the canal reached Cumberland,<ref name="Mackintosh">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp far short of its intended destination of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Occasionally there was talk of extending the 184.5-mile canal: for example, an 1874 proposal to dig an 8.4-mile tunnel through the Allegheny Mountains,<ref>Hahn, Pathway. 257</ref> and there was a tunnel built to connect with the Pennsylvania canal.<ref>Template:Cite book p. ix. Davies does not indicate if this tunnel was ever used, nor its location.</ref> Even though the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) beat the canal to Cumberland by eight years, the canal was not entirely obsolete. Only in the mid-1870s did larger locomotives and the adoption of air brakes allow the railroad to set rates lower than the canal, sealing its fate.<ref>Davies, p. ix</ref>

The C&O Canal operated from 1831 to 1924 and served primarily to transport coal from the Allegheny Mountains to Washington D.C.<ref name="Hahn">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp The canal was closed in 1924, in part due to several severe floods that devastated the canal's financial condition.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Federal government purchases canal

Work on restoring Lock 16 on the canal in 1939

In 1938, the abandoned canal was obtained from the B&O Railroad by the United States in exchange for a loan from the federal Reconstruction Finance Corporation.<ref name="canal">Template:Cite journal</ref> The government planned to restore it as a recreation area. Additionally, it was viewed as a project for employment for the jobless during the Great Depression. By 1940, the first Template:Convert of the canal were repaired and rewatered, from Georgetown to Violettes lock (Lock 23) and returned to operating condition by African-American enrollees with the Civilian Conservation Corps.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }} p. 71</ref> The first Canal Clipper boat, giving mule-driven rides, began in 1941.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It was later replaced by the John Quincy Adams in the 1960s.

The project was halted when the United States entered World War II and resources were needed elsewhere. In 1941, Harry Athey suggested to President Franklin Roosevelt that the canal could be converted into an underground highway or a bomb shelter with its roof for landing airplanes. The whole idea was deemed impractical due to the river's periodic flooding.<ref>Shaffer, p. 70</ref> In 1942, freshets destroyed the rewatered sections of the canal. National Park Service (NPS) official Arthur E. Demaray pressed that the canal from Dam #1 be restored, to supply water to the Dalecarlia Reservoir in case sabotage or bombing destroyed the normal conduits of water. Since this transformed the canal into a concern of national security, in 1942, the War Production Board approved the work.<ref>Shaffer p. 73</ref> By 1943, Congress had funded the work, repairs were done, and the Park Service resumed boat trips in October 1943.<ref>Shaffer p. 76</ref>

Congress expressed interest in developing the canal and towpath as a parkway. Because of the flooding from the 1920s to the 1940s, the Army Corps of Engineers proposed building 14 dams, that would have permanently inundated 74 miles of towpath, as well as the Monocacy and Antietam aqueducts.<ref>Shaffer p. 78</ref> Around 1945, the Corps wanted to remove Dam #8, which would destroy any hope of rewatering the canal above Dam #5, as well as put a levee around in the Cumberland area. Much of this was done, with the NPS cooperating with the Corps, since maintaining an operating canal all the way to Cumberland was too expensive, as well as wanting to preserve the western parts of the canal.<ref>Shaffer p. 79</ref>

Creation of the national park

Park map

The Douglas hike

The idea of turning the canal over to automobiles was opposed by some, including United States Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas. In March 1954, Douglas led an eight-day hike of the towpath from Cumberland to D.C.<ref name="canal"/> 58 people participated in one part of the hike or another; nine, including Douglas, Merlo J. Pusey,Template:Citation needed and Olaus Murie, hiked the full Template:Convert. Afterwards, Douglas formed a committee, renamed in 1957 the C&O Canal Association, that drafted plans to preserve and protect the Canal.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Douglas served as the chairman.

Towpath

In 1958, the entire path was cleared for hiking and a 12-mile bicycle trail was built on the towpath, from Georgetown's Mule Bridge at 34th Street in Washington, DC to Widewater, a meander cutoff of the Potomac in Maryland.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The bicycle trail was built by laying crushed blue stone over the muddy towpath and opened on November 22, 1958.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Widewater (NPS) https://www.nps.gov/choh/learn/kidsyouth/widewater.htm</ref> Cyclists were biking the full route by 1960.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

National monument, then national historical park

In 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower made the canal a national monument under the Antiquities Act, but that hardened the opposition to making the canal a national park. There was some support for making the Potomac River a national river instead.<ref name="save">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Within ten years, the political climate had changed, and realizing that the national river plan was unsupportable, the idea of turning the canal into a historic park had little opposition. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park Act <ref>Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park Act, Template:USPL, January 8, 1971.</ref> established the canal as a National Historical Park and President Richard Nixon signed it into law on January 8, 1971.<ref name="save"/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Floods of 1996

Before summer flooding (top) and after (bottom) in 1996

1996 saw two floods. After a blizzard in January, heavy rains washed away the snow and caused extreme flooding and run-off. The flood swept across 80 to 90 percent of the canal and towpath, damaging them and other park infrastructure. Volunteers helped repair the damage.

In September, Hurricane Fran caused more damage to the canal. Restoring the towpath and re-watering required much time, money, and volunteer effort.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Restoration efforts

Today, several organizations work to preserve and restore the park's beauty and history. The C&O Canal Trust,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> founded in 2007, is the official non-profit partner of the National Park Service. The C&O Canal Association is a volunteer organization established in 1954 to help conserve the natural and historical environment of the C&O Canal and the Potomac River Basin.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Together they work to restore Canal infrastructure, fix eroded sections of the towpath, and re-water sections of the Canal to keep it beautiful for visitors and wildlife. They also educate the community about the Canal's history at the National Park Service's six visitor centers along the canal: Georgetown, Great Falls Tavern, Brunswick, Williamsport, Hancock, and Cumberland.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Current restoration and construction efforts include restoring and rewatering the Conococheague Aqueduct,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> restoring Locks 3 and 4,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> repairs at Great Falls (Lock 20) and Swain's Lock (Lock 21).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A second phase of work at the Paw Paw tunnel started on May 13, 2019.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Today

Great Falls Tavern Visitor Center

Extent

The park includes nearly Template:Convert in a strip along the Potomac River. A small portion of the towpath near Harpers Ferry National Historical Park doubles as a section of the Appalachian Trail.

The canal begins at its zero mile marker (accessible only via Thompson's Boat House), directly on the Potomac, opposite the Watergate complex.<ref name="AIAGuide">Moeller, Gerard Martin and Weeks, Christopher. AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, D.C. 4th ed. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. Template:ISBN</ref>

In Allegany County, Maryland, the park includes the Western Maryland Railroad Right-of-Way, Milepost 126 to Milepost 160, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.<ref name="nris" />

Flooding continues to threaten historical structures on the canal and attempts at restoration. The Park Service has re-watered portions of the canal, but the majority of the canal does not have water in it.

Usage

The canal in Georgetown in Spring 2019

Varied in its geography, the canal and its towpath along with the adjacent Potomac offers activities including running, hiking, biking, fishing, boating and kayaking, as well as rock climbing in certain locations. The Canal also offers a variety of wildlife and birdwatching opportunities.

The seven National Park Service visitor centers have displays and interpretive exhibits on the history of the canal.<ref name="NPS-BasicInfo">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The park offers rides on two reproduction canal boats—the Georgetown and the Charles F. Mercer (named after the first president of the Canal corporation, and not the first boat on the canal named Charles F. Mercer)—during the spring, summer and autumn. The boats are pulled by mules, and park rangers in historical dress work the locks and boat while presenting a historical program.

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park receives around five million recreation visits annually.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Access through the Great Falls Tavern Visitor Center requires payment, but access anywhere else in the park is free.<ref name="NPS-BasicInfo" /> In January 2015, the National Park Service proposed adding entrance fees to virtually all access points along the towpath; the proposal was rescinded in February, amid backlash from communities along the canal.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

On February 9, 1963, Robert F. Kennedy succeeded in hiking from Great Falls, Maryland to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia along the C&O Canal towpath as part of the "50 mile frenzy" created by his brother President John F. Kennedy.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Hiker biker campsites

Turtle Run Hiker Biker campsite

The National Park Service maintains a number of hiker/biker campsites, about every Template:Convert along the towpath.<ref name="NPS-ParkPlanner" /> These are available for free on a first come first served basis. Each site has a water pump (mid-April to mid-November), picnic area, firepit, and latrine;<ref name="NPS-ParkPlanner" /> nearest vehicular access points vary from Template:Convert to "remote".<ref name="BikeWashington">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A list of hiker biker campsites is available from the NPS.<ref name="NPS-ParkPlanner">Template:Citation</ref>

Other camping

Campground at Paw Paw

The C&O Canal NHP also offers tent and primitive RV campsites for individuals and group as large as 35.<ref name="nps.gov">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Not all campsites have all amenities; campsites may have some or all of parking, restrooms, picnic tables, boat ramp, and nearby shopping.<ref name="nps.gov" /> Hiker-biker campsites are free of charge to use for a maximum of one night per trip.<ref name="nps.gov" /> They are used under a first-come, first-served basis. As of December 1, 2016 all drive-in (car) campsites moved from a first-come, first served system to a reservation system on Recreation.gov.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Here is a list of the drive-in, reservation campsites:<ref name="NPS-ParkPlanner" />

Education

Since 2013, the park has offered run a Canal Classrooms program for historical education for to K-12 students at three Great Falls, Williamsport, and Cumberland. The program for lower elementary grades looks at "the lifestyles of children along the canal in historical and modern contexts". Upper elementary grades can choose between "The C&O Canal: A Place of Refuge, Recreation, and Reflection", examining the civic activism of Justice William O. Douglas in preserving the canal; and "The Underground Railroad at the C&O Canal". Middle schoolers can take "The Building of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal", which looks at the canal’s socioeconomic impact on early industrialization.Template:Cn

See also

References

Template:Reflist Template:Refbegin

Template:Refend

Template:Sister project Template:Wikivoyage

Template:Cumberland, Maryland Template:Washington, D.C. hiking trails Template:Maryland hiking trails Template:National Historical Parks of the United States Template:Protected areas of the District of Columbia Template:Protected areas of Maryland Template:Protected areas of West Virginia Template:Georgetown, Washington, D.C. Template:Authority control

Retrieved from "https://wiki.sarg.dev/index.php?title=Chesapeake_and_Ohio_Canal_National_Historical_Park&oldid=577936"