The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal, operated from 1831 to 1924. The can

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal, operated from 1831 to 1924. The canal’s principal cargo was coal from the Allegheny Mountains.The canal way is now maintained as the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, with a trail that follows the old towpath. In 1961 he canal was established as a National Monument by President #DwightDEisenhower to preserve the neglected remains and many of its original structures. The canal and towpath trail extends along the #PotomacRiver from Georgetown, Washington, D.C., to Cumberland, Maryland, a distance of 184.5 miles (296.9 km).The national monument designation in the 1961 #AntiquitiesAct 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 park as it exists today; President #RichardNixon signed it into law on January 8, 1971.The park includes nearly 20,000 acres (80 km²) in a strip along the Potomac River. The canal begins at its zero mile marker (accessible only via Thompson’s Boat House) opposite the #Watergate complex. Author John Kelly, writing for the Washington Post 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 that a canal lock is “quite literally, a water gate.”Current restoration and construction efforts include restoring and rewatering the #ConococheagueAqueduct, restoring Locks 3 and 4, repairs at #GreatFalls (Lock 20) and Swain’s Lock (Lock 21). #dmvnessa #marylandisbeaut #findyourpark (at C&O Canal National Historic Park)https://www.instagram.com/p/CDb7W1OBNAO/?igshid=ku00tmedulsa -- source link

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