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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."
In 1954, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas and a group of conservation-minded fellow hikers walked the C&O Canal from Cumberland, Md., to Washington, D.C. Their aim was to head off a plan to build a highway atop the canal right-of-way. They advocated that a C&O Canal national park be created instead. Two years following the hike, Douglas proposed, and the hiking group unanimously approved, the formation of the C&O Canal Association to promote the national park proposal. The association organized popular "Reunion" hikes on the canal to publicize the park idea; at the same time, it urged Congress to pass legislation establishing a C&O Canal National Historical Park. These efforts finally yielded fruit in 1971 when Congress enacted the legislation creating the park. In 1991 the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Canal Association donated its papers to The George Washington University. They are currently under the care of GWU's Special Collections Research Center, located in the Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library. There have been subsequent donations from that time. [1]
Since 1971, the association has combined its hiking tradition with volunteer service to the Park. The group sponsors major annual hikes in the spring and fall, as well as a Cumberland-to-Washington Through Hike every fifth year in honor of the famous 1954 hike. The association also holds many other hiking, canoeing, cycling, and canal-related events, all open to the general public, as part of a program that offers recreation while enhancing public enthusiasm and support for the C&O Canal NHP.
The association provides volunteers to help the short-staffed Park through programs that include the Level Walkers, individuals who patrol assigned portions of the towpath, removing trash and reporting problems to NPS. The association’s Volunteers-In-Parks group performs such tasks as removing invasive plants, painting and repairing structures, rehabilitating trails, and installing interpretive wayside signs. Other volunteer programs include providing information to Park visitors at Lockhouse 75.
Since 2001, the association has produced C&O Canal "towpath tags," which each year feature an image of a different canal structure or scene. The laminated tags, which offer a way for individuals to show their support of the Park, are available at the Park’s visitor centers. In exchange, visitors make a small suggested contribution that goes directly to the Park.
An overriding objective of the association is maintaining the continuity of the C&O Canal NHP. To that end, the group has worked successfully to help accomplish such projects as restoration of the Widewater section of the towpath and of the Monocacy Aqueduct. The association has also been a supporting partner of the Catoctin Aqueduct Restoration Fund. Since 2005, a major goal has been the restoration of the towpath in the Big Slackwater area, which had been closed due to severe erosion. It was reopened in 2012.
The association recognizes that citizen participation is necessary to securing a bright future for the Park, which is not only vulnerable to the forces of nature, but has long suffered from insufficient resources for its adequate maintenance. Membership in the association is open to anyone who supports the organization’s aim to preserve and protect the C&O Canal and its natural setting along the Potomac River.
Cumberland is a city in and the county seat of Allegany County, Maryland, United States. It is the primary city of the Cumberland, MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the 2010 census, the city had a population of 20,859, and the metropolitan area had a population of 103,299. Located on the Potomac River, Cumberland is a regional business and commercial center for Western Maryland and the Potomac Highlands of West Virginia.
Paw Paw is a town in Morgan County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 508 in the 2010 census. The town is known for the nearby Paw Paw Tunnel. Paw Paw was incorporated by the Circuit Court of Morgan County on April 8, 1891 and named for the pawpaw, a wild fruit which grows in abundance throughout this region. Paw Paw is the westernmost incorporated community in Morgan County and the Hagerstown-Martinsburg, MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area.
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.
The Paw Paw Tunnel is a 3,118-foot-long (950 m) canal tunnel on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C&O) in Allegany County, Maryland. Located near Paw Paw, West Virginia, it was built to bypass the Paw Paw Bends, a six-mile (9.7 km) stretch of the Potomac River containing five horseshoe-shaped bends. The town, the bends, and the tunnel take their name from the pawpaw trees that grow prolifically along nearby ridges.
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.
The Potomac Heritage Trail, also known as the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail or the PHT, is a designated National Scenic Trail corridor spanning parts of the mid-Atlantic and upper southeastern regions of the United States that will connect various trails and historic sites in the states of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia. The trail network includes 710 miles (1,140 km) of existing and planned sections, tracing the outstanding natural, historical, and cultural features of the Potomac River corridor, the upper Ohio River watershed in Pennsylvania and western Maryland, and a portion of the Rappahannock River watershed in Virginia. The trail is managed by the National Park Service.
The Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) is a rail trail system in Maryland and Pennsylvania—the central trail of a network of long-distance hiker-biker trails throughout the Allegheny region of the Appalachian Mountains, connecting Washington, D.C. to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It consists of several smaller trails including the Allegheny Highlands Trail of Maryland, the Allegheny Highlands Trail of Pennsylvania and the Youghiogheny River Trail.
The James River and Kanawha Canal was a partially built canal in Virginia intended to facilitate shipments of passengers and freight by water between the western counties of Virginia and the coast. Ultimately its towpath became the roadbed for a rail line following the same course.
Gilbert Gude was a U.S. Congressman who represented the Maryland's 8th congressional district from January 3, 1967, to January 3, 1977.
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, operated by the National Park Service, is located on the southern banks in Virginia, while Chesapeake and Ohio Canal parkland is located along the northern banks of the river in Maryland. The Potomac and the falls themselves are legally entirely within Maryland, with the state and county boundaries following the south bank of the river.
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)
Spring Gap is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Allegany County, Maryland, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 55.
The Gene Mason Sports Complex is a 55-acre (220,000 m2) sports field park complex located in Cumberland, Maryland. The park was dedicated in 1952 and geared towards organized team sports of baseball, soccer, football, valley ball, tennis, and basketball. A natural vegetation buffer exists along the Potomac River frontage, acting as a stormwater runoff filter and component of the Potomac River Greenway.
Canal Parkway, which carries the unsigned Maryland Route 61 designation, is a state highway and automobile parkway in the U.S. state of Maryland. The road begins at the West Virginia state line at the North Branch Potomac River opposite Wiley Ford, where the highway continues south as West Virginia Route 28. The parkway runs 1.94 miles (3.12 km) north to MD 51 within the city of Cumberland. Canal Parkway provides a connection between downtown Cumberland and the South Cumberland neighborhood and with Greater Cumberland Regional Airport, which is located in Mineral County, West Virginia.
Dierssen Wildlife Management Area is a Wildlife Management Area (WMA) near Seneca in Montgomery County, Maryland.
A series of projects in the 18th and 19th centuries attempted to make the Potomac River navigable and connect the Ohio River valley and the East Coast. The first project was started by the Potomac Company, but it was the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company (C&O) that finished the project in the 1830s and 1840s.
Seneca Aqueduct — or Aqueduct No. 1 — is a naviduct that carries the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C&O) over Seneca Creek in Montgomery County, Maryland. The C&O built eleven aqueducts along its 184.5 miles (296.9 km) length. Seneca Aqueduct is a unique structure, not only being the first built, but also the only red sandstone aqueduct on the C&O−and the only aqueduct that is also a lock. It is located at the end of Riley's Lock Road in Seneca, Maryland.
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 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.
Riley's Lock (Lock 24) 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. They are located at towpath mile-marker 22.7 adjacent to Seneca Creek, in Montgomery County, Maryland. The lock is sometimes identified as Seneca because of the Seneca Aqueduct that carried the canal over the creek to the lift lock. The name Riley comes from John C. Riley, who was lock keeper from 1892 until the canal closed permanently in 1924.
