Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 3
Charles Codman,“Kalorama,” c. 1830. (Diplomatic Reception Rooms, US Depart-
ment of State)
The Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Canal represented an even more
ambitious attempt to transform the natural landscape for the sake of trade
and commerce.The proposed canal would connect the Potomac and Ohio
river basins with a 360-mile man-made waterway, paralleling the Potomac
with a more navigable artificial channel. Marveling at the audacity of this
plan, President John Quincy Adams declared that the project would be “a
conquest over nature such as has never yet been achieved by man.” Unfor-
tunately, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad started building its track west-
ward on the same day that ground was broken for the C&O Canal. The
canal reached Cumberland, Maryland in 1850, but could not compete with
the railroad. Plans to proceed across the Alleghenies were abandoned,
though the canal remained in operation until the early twentieth century.
Completed in 1843, the Alexandria Canal intersected with the C&O Canal
above Georgetown, allowing canal traffic to bypass the shallow and slow-
moving bend of the Potomac. L'Enfant's vision of an impressive ornamen-
tal canal emanating from the base of Capitol Hill was not realized, but the
architect Benjamin Latrobe oversaw the construction of a more utilitarian
waterway in the same approximate location. The Washington City Canal
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