Volunteering to help the park: A work crew installs a bench near Great Falls in 2016.
Supporting park projects: Catoctin Aqueduct after collapse in 1973
Supporting park projects: Catoctin Aqueduct after restoration effort in 2011
Exploring history and nature: Sideling Hill Creek Aqueduct as viewed from the Western Maryland Rail Trail.
Protecting the canal since 1954: The association opposes Georgetown University’s plan to build a large boathouse in the park
Protecting the canal since 1954: The association opposes Georgetown University’s plan to build a large boathouse in the park
Exploring history and nature: Hikers gather at Fifteen Mile Creek Aqueduct in 2018.
Protecting the canal since 1954: Justice Douglas and eight others pause during their famous hike, which publicized the canal in 1954
Exploring history and nature: Ranger provides interpretation for hikers at Seneca Stone Cutting Mill in 2020.
Exploring history and nature: Hikers marvel at a large specimen during a tree identification walk in 2012
Volunteering to help the park: Association volunteer attaches plaque to newly installed bench in 2018.
Exploring history and nature: Association members participate in the last day of the 2009 Thru Hike at Great Falls
Volunteering to help the park: Association member helps install an identification sign at Landers in 2011
Exploring history and nature: Hikers gather at Dam 5 in 2019.
Protecting the canal since 1954: Justice Douglas and others rally against replacing the canal with a highway.
Volunteering to help the park: Association members repaint picnic tables at Swains Lock
Volunteering to help the park: Association volunteers assemble picnic table in 2018.
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When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted.Canals: The Brief Building Boom That Reshaped Rural America
Canals: The Brief Building Boom That Reshaped Rural America
www.lancasterfarming.com
For a few decades in the 1800s, the United States experienced a “canal mania” that expanded agriculture in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest.The C&O Canal Association grew out of Douglas’s efforts to protect the canal from being paved over to create a new highwayOn this day, we remember Justice William O. Douglas, who refused to let power and money bulldoze what belonged to everyone.
In the 1950s, developers wanted to pave over the historic Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, replacing 185 miles of towpath with a highway. The Washington Post backed the plan. Douglas did not.
Instead of another opinion from his desk, Douglas dared the newspaper's editors to walk the entire canal with him, start to finish, on foot.
They accepted. But mile after mile, through heat and exhaustion, the journalists could not keep pace. Douglas did not stop. He walked until the end, proving his devotion to the land was not empty words.
The hike made headlines nationwide. The Washington Post reversed its position. The highway was never built. Today the canal stands preserved as a National Historical Park, walked by millions who may never know the man who saved it.
Douglas reminds us that courage does not always wear a uniform. Sometimes it wears hiking boots, and walks until the world listens.