History of Canal

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Construction of the C & O Canal was initiated with a ground breaking on July 4, 1828. The event was presided by President John Quincy Adams and included a number of verbose speeches comparing the canal with the Pyramids of Egypt. Government officials predicted that the canal would take only three years to complete; it would take twenty-two years. On the same day, another ground breaking ceremony by private businessmen was taking place in Baltimore to launch America's first railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio. The canal project only got as far as Cumberland, Maryland, and never reached the Ohio River. When it was completed in 1850 at a cost of $22 million, the railroad was already in Cumberland for eight years and the canal was already obsolete. The C & O project never reached O!

The canal failed as a commercial venture, but succeeded as a bold engineering achievement. In the summer of 1889, a flood swept the Potomac valley, leaving the canal in ruin. It was rebuilt and used until 1924, when another flood seriously damaged the canal, forcing it to close down.




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