1938: US Government Acquires the C&O Canal

Enlarged section of Page A-2 of the Washington, DC Evening Star newspaper, dated 06 Oct. 1938 that discusses the Canal being rebuilt as a park by CCC.

Lib. of Congress.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was interested in buying the C&O Canal from the "receivers" for parkway construction and canal rehabilitation. Before the President and National Park Service could buy the land, they wanted to know the legal status of the property. How much of the Canal did the receivers have to sell?

During to an investigation, the Justice Department found that a certain area of the canal that contained the canal's tidelock (through which boats could move between the river and a basin) had been filled in by the Canal Company on the federally owned riverbed, where Rock Creek entered the Potomac in Washington, DC. The Justice Department filed suit against the receivers, the C&O Canal Company, and its trustees on January 8, 1936, claiming the land should be given back to the United States since the Canal Company was no longer in business.

March 1936, the government’s entitlement to the Canal was strengthened when the largest Potomac flood on record, hit the Canal. The Flood of 1936 tore through the Upper Ohio River Valley including the Maryland towns, of Cumberland, Hancock, and Williamsport, all the way down to Georgetown, DC, washing out numerous summer camps and boathouses on riverfront lands leased to others by the Canal Company. With the towpath being destroyed and most of the canal, the C&O Canal was left financially bankrupt.

 

The receivers knew it needed to sell the Canal due to insufficient funds but had reservations of the sale. The receivers wanted to reserve some of the canal land—15 segments of canal bed totaling more than 31 miles for additional track in places above Point of Rocks where the railroad lines ran close to the canal. The National Park Service was eager to employ the Civil Conservation Corps (CCC) to begin work on the Canal. The representatives of the receivers and Federal Government came to a general agreement called the “slope clause”.

 

Slope-Clause Description

"the necessary slopes for fills, the slope limits of which shall be described by metes and bounds as soon as surveys are completed, provided that such slopes shall not extend beyond a point midway between the bottom of the canal bed slope and the top of the same slope where it joins the towpath grade, and shall not encroach upon any Canal Company locks, aqueducts, or spillway structures, and provided further that such slope limits shall be subject to the final approval of the Secretary of the Interior, or his successors".

 

On August 6, 1938, all parties signed a sales contract, which allowed the Federal Government to deploy CCC enrollees to their new canal worksite. However, it was not until September 28, 1938, that all provisions of the legal contract between the receivers and the Federal Government were finalized. The US Federal Government and Department of Interior (DOI) officially purchased the entire canal for $2,000,000 and another $500,000 set aside for parkway construction and canal rehabilitation.

 

Action Challenge

When the Federal Government took ownership of the C&O Canal, it helped ensure its preservation, although there were many people from citizens to other government agencies that were actually in favor of a parkway instead of keeping the Canal.

1. What do you think? What would you have done if you were the Federal Government?

Share your feelings with us on social media, using #FindYourPark, #candocanal and tag us @COcanalNPS.

 

References

Chesapeake & Ohio Canal NHP (2004). The Making of a Park: Chapter 1: Uncle Sam Buys a Canal. Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/choh/admin_history/history1.htm

Evening Star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.), 06 Oct. 1938. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1938-10-06/ed-1/seq-2/

The CCC and the C&O.  (n.d.). Retrieved from Canal Trust: https://www.canaltrust.org/2018/02/the-ccc-and-the-co/

Western Maryland Regional Library. (n.d.). The 1936 Flood in Cumberland, Hancock, and Williamsport. http://www.whilbr.org/1936Flood/index.aspx