Along the C&O Canal in Georgetown

Last December I met an old friend for lunch at Café La Ruche, on 31st Street, NW, in Georgetown.  Originally a small tobacco port town on the Potomac River, Georgetown was founded and named after King George II in 1751 and later incorporated into Washington, DC in 1871.  The building housing this popular French bistro was originally a private residence constructed circa 1830 on what was then known as Fishing Lane.  It remained a family residence over the years, and in the 1960s it served as the Market Playhouse and home to its popular repertory company.  Café La Ruche, which has long been my favorite watering hole in Georgetown, opened its doors in 1979.  “A bit of Paris on the Potomac.”

This lunchtime outing provided an ideal opportunity to wander along the C&O Canal as it transects Georgetown from its starting point at the former tidewater canal where Rock Creek flows into the Potomac River very near the Watergate complex.  Here, too, a skirting canal was constructed along the river to the Washington City Canal which followed what is now Constitution Avenue to wharves located along the Eastern Branch of the Potomac (now the Anacostia River).  I was able to walk the first mile of the 185 mile length of the C&) Canal as it parallels the Potomac from Georgetown to Cumberland, Maryland.

The canal was originally designed to allow for the transportation of goods and cargo from the head of navigable water on the Potomac to the headwaters of the Ohio River at Pittsburgh, in western Pennsylvania.  The Patowmack Company, established by George Washington in 1785, constructed a series of canals along the Virginia side of the river to improve navigation on the Potomac by bypassing the falls above Georgetown.  It eventually ceded its holdings to the Chesapeake and Ohio Company in 1824, and President John Quincy Adams broke ground for the new canal on July 4, 1828.  The first section from Georgetown to Seneca Falls, Maryland was completed and operational in 1831.  The remainder of the canal and its 74 locks, which raised or lowered barges 604 feet, were completed only to Cumberland in 1851, and in 1889 it came under the control of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.  The canal remained operational until 1924 when it was damaged by flooding and could no longer compete with the faster railroads.

The federal government took control of the obsolete canal in 1938 with the idea of transforming it into a National Park, plans for which were delayed by the onset of World War II.  After the war there was talk of constructing a highway along the river, and in 1954 Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas hiked the entire length of the old canal to underscore its importance as a recreational area.  It was finally designated a National Historic Park in January 1971, due in large part to Douglas’ continuing efforts. 

My ramble began at the site of the former Tidal Lock, at the site of the Potomac watergate.  Rock Creek was originally damned at this site to create a tidewater basin where boats and barges could maneuver as they entered and departed the canal.  The lock is now badly disintegrated and silted in and there is no towpath adjacent to this lock.  It is necessary to walk past the Thompson Boat Center and take the bridge over Rock Creek to the beginning of the towpath on the edge of Georgetown.

At the time the canal was built Georgetown was a gritty, industrial port with warehouses,  foundries and mills located along its edges.  The towpath was originally on the river (south) side of the canal as far as what is now 29th Street, NW (formerly Green Street) to avoid interfering with the wharves that were expanding along the riverfront to handle coal, building stones and other cargo following the construction of the canal.  Today the canal walk in Georgetown, runs entirely along the north side of the canal and the first four locks, which are situated very close together in the first mile, still contain water and are some of the best preserved locks on the entire canal.  Walking here one can get a real sense of what it was like over a century ago.

It was a delightful lunch at Café La Ruche, all the more so given a beautiful day for a quiet stroll along the canal.  I must come back here when the weather warms up, but it is a treat regardless of the season.