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The Canal Connection
President George Washington commissioned Pierre L'Enfant to design the Capital City in 1790. The L'Enfant Plan included a system of canals to transport heavy goods at a time when roads and streets were few and muddy. The Washington City Canal (green) was opened in 1815. Construction began in 1828 on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (yellow) to connect Washington, DC, to the fertile Ohio Valley. The Washington Branch of the C&O Canal (red), built by 1833, joined the two waterways and opened the city to commerce.
The Canal ventures proved to be an expensive investment. The Washington Branch of the C&O Canal and the Washington City Canal carried so little commerce that they were abandoned 30 years after construction. Railroads, not canals, dominated transportation in the nineteenth century. In the 1870s the long process of filling these canals began. |