C&O Canal Renovations

BARGE INTO HISTORY ON THE C&O CANAL

A new replica provides a portal to the past.

Story and photos by Jefferson Holland

The main attraction of the 184.5-mile-long Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historic Park is the towpath. Mules used to tread that path, towing barges up and down the canal. Today, the path serves as a popular hiking/biking trail between Washington, D.C., and Cumberland, Md., with connections that run over the Allegheny Mountains all the way to Pittsburgh.

But now, for just one mile of that distance, you can see firsthand how the canal was originally intended to function. Last October, the nonprofit Georgetown Heritage organization launched a $1.5 million replica of the packet boats that moved coal, grain, lumber and building stone from the mountains to the tidewater of the Chesapeake Bay for nearly 75 years. Barges like this one hauled a million tons of cargo in 1875, the canal’s peak. The new boat hauls up to 60 passengers on a one-hour tour up and back on about a half-mile of restored canal.

Modern-day bargemen guide the long, narrow packet boat replica along a restored stretch of the C&O Canal in D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood.

The C&O Canal became a National FINISH READING HERE

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