Bear Island (Maryland)

Last updated
Bear Island
Geography
Location Potomac, Montgomery County, Maryland
Coordinates 38°59′06″N77°14′36″W / 38.9851100°N 77.2433142°W / 38.9851100; -77.2433142 Coordinates: 38°59′06″N77°14′36″W / 38.9851100°N 77.2433142°W / 38.9851100; -77.2433142
Administration

Bear Island is an island located in Potomac, Montgomery County, Maryland between the Potomac River and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal near the Great Falls. It is managed by the National Park Service as part of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park and is co-owned by The Nature Conservancy. [1] One of its most popular attractions is the Billy Goat Trail. Pets are not allowed on Bear Island, nor is smoking. [2]

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Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Canal in Washington, D.C. and Maryland, United States

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal and occasionally called the "Grand Old Ditch," operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., to Cumberland, Maryland. The canal's principal cargo was coal from the Allegheny Mountains.

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The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park is located in the District of Columbia and the state of Maryland. The park was established in 1961 as a National Monument by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to preserve the neglected remains of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and many of its original structures. The canal and towpath trail extends along the Potomac River from Georgetown, Washington, D.C., to Cumberland, Maryland, a distance of 184.5 miles (296.9 km). In 2013, the path was designated as the first section of U.S. Bicycle Route 50.

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Rock Creek (Potomac River tributary) Tributary of the Potomac River in Maryland and Washington, D.C., United States

Rock Creek is a free-flowing tributary of the Potomac River that empties into the Atlantic Ocean via the Chesapeake Bay. The 32.6-mile (52.5 km) creek drains about 76.5 square miles (198 km2). Its final quarter-mile is affected by tides.

Bear Rocks Preserve

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Great Falls (Potomac River) Waterfalls on the Potomac River in Maryland and Virginia

Great Falls is a series of rapids and waterfalls on the Potomac River, 14 miles (23 km) upstream from Washington, D.C., on the border of Montgomery County, Maryland and Fairfax County, Virginia. Great Falls Park, managed as part of George Washington Memorial Parkway, is on the southern banks in Virginia, and Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park parkland is along the northern banks of the river in Maryland. Both are operated by the National Park Service. The Potomac and the falls themselves are legally entirely within Maryland, with the state and county boundaries following the south bank of the river.

Mather Gorge

Mather Gorge is a river gorge south and just downriver of Great Falls in the state of Maryland bordering Virginia. The Maryland land side of the gorge is Bear Island, part of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, and the Virginia side is part of Great Falls Park. Both parks are National Park Service sites. The gorge is named after Stephen Mather, the first director of the National Park Service.

Billy Goat Trail

The Billy Goat Trail is a 4.7-mile (7.6 km) hiking trail that follows a path between the C&O Canal and the Potomac River within the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park near Great Falls in Montgomery County, Maryland. The trail has three sections: Section A, the northernmost, is 1.7 miles (2.7 km); Section B is 1.4 miles (2.3 km); and Section C, the southernmost, is 1.6 miles (2.6 km)

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The Tidewater Lock is a dam in Washington, D.C. to the west of the mouth of Rock Creek at the Potomac River, on the east side of Georgetown. Built to connect the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, opened in 1831, with the Potomac, it was a busy maritime intersection during several decades of the canal's heyday. C&O documents refer to it variously as Lock 0 and Tide Lock A.

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Potomac Heights is a neighborhood in Northwest Washington, D.C., overlooking the Potomac River from MacArthur Boulevard westward. Potomac Heights is the part of the Palisades bounded to the north by Loughboro Road and to the south by Chain Bridge and Arizona Avenue NW. It is part of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 3D in Ward 3, the far northwest corner of the Northwest Quadrant just north of Georgetown.

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Association is a not-for-profit organization that supports the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park. Its charter states that the association is "concerned with the conservation of the natural and historical environment of the C&O Canal and the Potomac River Basin."

Big Pool, Maryland Unincorporated community in Maryland, United States

Big Pool is an unincorporated community in western Washington County, Maryland, United States. Its population was 82 as of the 2010 census. It is between Clear Spring, Maryland and Hancock, Maryland along Interstate 70 and is officially a part of the Hagerstown Metropolitan Area.

Mallows Bay Bay in Maryland, US with many shipwrecks

Mallows Bay is a small bay on the Maryland side of the Potomac River in Charles County, Maryland, United States. The bay is the location of what is regarded as the "largest shipwreck fleet in the Western Hemisphere" and is described as a "ship graveyard."

Muddy Branch Tributary of the Potomac River in Maryland, United States

Muddy Branch is a tributary stream of the Potomac River in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, located about 14 miles (23 km) northwest of Washington, D.C.

R. Paul Smith Power Station former electric generating plant

The R. Paul Smith Power Station is a closed electric generating plant owned by FirstEnergy in Williamsport, Maryland.

Seneca Dam

Seneca Dam was the last in a series of dams proposed on the Potomac River in the area of the Great Falls of the Potomac. Apart from small-scale dams intended to divert water for municipal use in the District of Columbia and into the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, no version of any scheme was ever built. In most cases the proposed reservoir would have extended upriver to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The project was part of a program of as many as sixteen major dams in the Potomac watershed, most of which were never built.

Pennyfield Lock Lock on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal in Travilah, Maryland, United States

The Pennyfield Lock and lockhouse are part of the 184.5-mile (296.9 km) Chesapeake and Ohio Canal that operated in the United States along the Potomac River from the 1830s through 1923. The lock, located at towpath mile-marker 19.7, is near River Road in Montgomery County, Maryland. The original lock house was built in 1830, and its lock was completed in 1831.

Swains Lock Lock on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal in Travilah, Maryland, United States

Swains Lock and lock house are part of the 184.5-mile (296.9 km) Chesapeake and Ohio Canal that operated in the United States along the Potomac River from the 1830s through 1923. It is located at towpath mile-marker 16.7 near Potomac, Maryland, and within the Travilah census-designated place in Montgomery County, Maryland. The lock and lock house were built in the early 1830s and began operating shortly thereafter.

References

  1. nature.org
  2. . The Nature Conservancy. Bear Island / Potomac Gorge Archived 2006-02-06 at the Wayback Machine