The C&O Canal in Georgetown

As a young man, George Washington surveyed western Pennsylvania, then known as the Ohio Country. That's when the Father of Our Country conceived the idea of building a canal connected to the Potomac River to open up the area to settlement and commerce. That first waterway was the Patowmack Canal. Washington was the president of the Patowmack Company and supervised the building of the canal.


Construction of the Erie Canal, which began in 1817, spurred Virginians and Marylanders to build a larger canal, to run from the Potomac--which empties into Chesapeake Bay--to the Ohio River--the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, the C&O. It operated from 1831 until 1924. But he canal never made it to the Ohio, its terminus is at Cumberland, Maryland.

Behind the Georgetown hotel the Marathon Pundit family stayed in while we were at CPAC is the canal. After World War II, Congress contemplated transforming the canal into a highway--in the manner the Chicago portion of the Illinois & Michigan Canal became the Stevenson Expressway. But preservationists, among them Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, fought that plan. Douglas was one of nine men in 1954 to walk the entire length of the canal--184 miles--to draw attention to their cause.

Douglas won the case, the canal and its adjacent towpath--which is very popular with walkers, runners, and cyclists, remains. In 1971 it became the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park.

The eastern terminus of the canal is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington D.C. The Douglas bust is a short walk from the terminus.

Related posts:

North Shore Channel

Illinois' Hennepin Canal in January

The Illinois & Michigan Canal


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