The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park is located in the

District of Columbia ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

and the state of

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

. The park was established in 1961 as a National Monument by President

Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...

to preserve the neglected remains of the

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal and occasionally called the "Grand Old Ditch," operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River between Washington, D.C. and Cumberland, Maryland. It replaced the Potomac Canal, ...

and many of its original structures. The

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

and

towpath A towpath is a road or trail on the bank of a river, canal, or other inland waterway. The purpose of a towpath is to allow a land vehicle, beasts of burden, or a team of human pullers to tow a boat, often a barge. This mode of transport w ...

trail extends along the

Potomac River The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augu ...

from Georgetown, Washington, D.C., to

Cumberland, Maryland Cumberland is a U.S. city in and the county seat of Allegany County, Maryland. It is the primary city of the Cumberland, MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 19,076. Located on the Potomac River, ...

, a distance of . In 2013, the path was designated as the first section of U.S. Bicycle Route 50.

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal

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, far short of its intended destination of

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

. 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 The Allegheny Mountain Range (; also spelled Alleghany or Allegany), informally the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada and posed a significant barrier to land travel in less devel ...

, and there was a tunnel built to connect with the Pennsylvania canal. 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 A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, motor coach, railcar or power car; the ...

and the adoption of air brakes allow the railroad to set rates lower than the canal, sealing its fate. The C&O Canal operated from 1831 to 1924 and served primarily to transport

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

from the Allegheny Mountains to Washington D.C. The canal was closed in 1924, in part due to several severe

flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

s that devastated the canal's financial condition.

Federal government purchases canal

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. 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 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 The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a major part of ...

. The first ''Canal Clipper'' boat, giving mule-driven rides, began in 1941. It was later replaced by the ''John Quincy Adams'' in the 1960s. The project was halted when the United States entered

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

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. In 1942,

freshet The term ''freshet'' is most commonly used to describe a spring thaw resulting from snow and ice melt in rivers located in upper North America. A spring freshet can sometimes last several weeks on large river systems, resulting in significant in ...

s 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 Dalecarlia Reservoir is the primary storage basin for drinking water in Washington, D.C., fed by an underground aqueduct in turn fed by low dams which divert portions of the Potomac River near Great Falls and Little Falls. The reservoir is l ...

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 The War Production Board (WPB) was an agency of the United States government that supervised war production during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established it in January 1942, with Executive Order 9024. The WPB replaced the Su ...

approved the work. By 1943,

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

had funded the work, repairs were done, and the Park Service resumed boat trips in October 1943. The 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 The Battle of Antietam (), or Battle of Sharpsburg particularly in the Southern United States, was a battle of the American Civil War fought on September 17, 1862, between Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and Union G ...

aqueducts. 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.

Creation of the national park

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park (map)

The Douglas hike

The idea of turning the canal over to automobiles was opposed by some, including

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

Associate Justice Associate justice or associate judge (or simply associate) is a judicial panel member who is not the chief justice in some jurisdictions. The title "Associate Justice" is used for members of the Supreme Court of the United States and some sta ...

William O. Douglas William Orville Douglas (October 16, 1898January 19, 1980) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who was known for his strong progressive and civil libertarian views, and is often ci ...

. In March 1954, Douglas led an eight-day hike of the towpath from Cumberland to D.C. Although 58 people participated in one part of the hike or another, only nine men, including Douglas and Olaus Murie, hiked the full . Following this hike, Justice Douglas formed a committee, later to be known as the C&O Canal Association in 1957, which would draft plans to preserve and protect the Canal. Serving as the chairman of this group, his commitment to the park proved successful.

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, MD. The bicycle trail was built by laying crushed blue stone over the muddy towpath and opened on November 22, 1958. Cyclists were biking the full route by 1960.

National monument, then national historical park

In 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower made the canal a national monument under the

Antiquities Act The Antiquities Act of 1906 (, , ), is an act that was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt on June 8, 1906. This law gives the President of the United States the authority to, by presidential procla ...

, 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. 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'' established the canal as a

National Historical Park National Historic Site (NHS) is a designation for an officially recognized area of national historic significance in the United States. An NHS usually contains a single historical feature directly associated with its subject. The National Historic ...

and President

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

signed it into law on January 8, 1971.

Floods of 1996

The winter and summer of 1996 saw two separate floods. Following a blizzard in January, heavy rains washed away the snow and caused extreme flooding and run-off. This major winter flood swept across 80 to 90 percent of the canal and towpath, causing high waters, along with the adjacent Potomac River. Erosion due to the floods lead to heavy damages to the towpath and much of the infrastructure of the canal and park. Following the winter flood, there was an overwhelming need for volunteers in response to the damages caused. Unfortunately, in September,

Hurricane Fran Hurricane Fran caused extensive damage in the United States in early September 1996. The sixth named storm, fifth hurricane, and third major hurricane of the 1996 Atlantic hurricane season, Fran developed from a tropical wave near Cape Verde on ...

caused even more damage to the canal in multiple parts, requiring workers and volunteers to restore and reconstruct the towpath and re-water the canal, several major projects that would take a large amount of time and money to complete.

Restoration efforts

Today, several organizations work to preserve and restore the park's beauty and history. The C&O Canal Trust, founded in 2007, is the official non-profit partner of the National Park Service. The C&O Canal Association is an all-volunteer citizens organization established in 1954 to help conserve of the natural and historical environment of the C&O Canal and the Potomac River Basin. Together they are making progress in restoration efforts of Canal infrastructure, fixing eroded sections of the towpath and re-watering sections of the Canal to keep it beautiful for both visitors and wildlife, as well as educating the community on the Canal's rich history in interactive ways at the six different visitor centers along the canal: Georgetown, Great Falls Tavern, Brunswick, Williamsport,

Hancock Hancock may refer to: Places in the United States * Hancock, Iowa * Hancock, Maine * Hancock, Maryland * Hancock, Massachusetts * Hancock, Michigan * Hancock, Minnesota * Hancock, Missouri * Hancock, New Hampshire ** Hancock (CDP), New Hampshir ...

, and Cumberland, operated by the National Park Service and its rangers. Current restoration and construction efforts include restoring and rewatering the Conococheague Aqueduct, restoring Locks 3 and 4, repairs at Great Falls (Lock 20) and Swain's Lock (Lock 21). A second phase of work at the Paw Paw tunnel started on May 13, 2019.

Today

Extent

The park includes nearly in a strip along the Potomac River. A small portion of the towpath near

Harpers Ferry National Historical Park Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, originally Harpers Ferry National Monument, is located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers in and around Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The park includes the historic center of Harpers F ...

doubles as a section of the

Appalachian Trail The Appalachian Trail (also called the A.T.), is a hiking trail in the Eastern United States, extending almost between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine, and passing through 14 states.Gailey, Chris (2006)"Appalachian ...

. The canal begins at its zero mile marker (accessible only via Thompson's Boat House), directly on the Potomac, opposite the

Watergate complex The Watergate complex is a group of six buildings in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C., in the United States. Covering a total of 10 acres (4 ha) just north of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the buildings incl ...

. Author John Kelly, writing for ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' in 2004, suggested that the name of the Watergate complex may derive from its location directly adjacent to the canal's zero milepost, where to this day, the canal's large ''wooden gate'' sits directly on the Potomac and adjacent to the complex. Kelly wrote, a canal lock is "quite literally, a water gate."Moeller, Gerard Martin and Weeks, Christopher. ''AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, D.C.'' 4th ed. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. In Allegany County, Maryland, the park includes the

Western Maryland Railroad Right-of-Way, Milepost 126 to Milepost 160 Western Maryland Railroad Right-of-Way, Milepost 126 to Milepost 160 is a historic section of the Western Maryland Railway (WM) in Allegany County, Maryland, and Morgan County, West Virginia. It is an abandoned section of the right-of-way between ...

, listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1981. 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

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. 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. Access through the Great Falls Tavern Visitor Center requires payment, but access anywhere else in the park is free. 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. 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

In February 2013, FreeWalkers, Inc., a New Jersey-based non-profit, created the FreeWalkers Kennedy50 50-Mile walk along the C&O Canal towpath from Old Anglers Inn to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia to commemorate RFK's historic walk and continues to be held annually.

Hiker biker campsites

file:Turtle Run Hiker Biker on Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.jpg, upleft, Turtle Run Hiker Biker campsite The National Park Service maintains a number of hiker/biker campsites, about every along the towpath. 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 A latrine is a toilet or an even simpler facility that is used as a toilet within a sanitation system. For example, it can be a communal trench in the earth in a camp to be used as emergency sanitation, a hole in the ground ( pit latrine), or ...

; nearest vehicular access points vary from to "remote". A list of hiker biker campsites is available from the NPS.

Other camping

The C&O Canal NHP also offers tent and primitive RV campsites for individuals and group as large as 35. Not all campsites have all amenities; campsites may have some or all of parking, restrooms, picnic tables, boat ramp, and nearby shopping. Hiker-biker campsites are free of charge to use for a maximum of one night per trip. 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. Group campsites are $40 during peak season and $20 during off season. Here is a list of the drive-in, reservation campsites: (data from NPS):

References

* Butcher, Russell D. (1997). ''Exploring Our National Historic Parks and Sites''. Roberts Rinehart Publishers * National Park Service
''Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park.''
Retrieved 2010-05-11.

External links