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. 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, 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 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 from the Allegheny Mountains to Washington D.C. The canal was closed in 1924, in part due to several severe
floods 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 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 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,
freshets 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 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 approved the work. By 1943,
Congress had funded the work, repairs were done, and the Park Service resumed boat trips in October 1943. 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 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==