Rethinking the C&O Canal

The old saying goes, “You can’t fit a square peg in a round hole.” Yet for more than 90 years, historians have said that somehow 92-foot-long canal boats on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal fit into locks that could hold boats no larger than 90 feet and probably less. It’s just one of the many questions that modern researchers are finding need to be answered about the C&O Canal. Some have easy answers that go against the accepted history of the canal. Others, like the question of canal-boat length, are still being researched. Both have historians and National Park Service staff rethinking how the C&O Canal operated. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal ended business operations in 1924. Since then, books have been written about the canal, historians have researched the lives of canallers and lock tenders, and the National Park Read more…

Chambersburg's (Pa.) trolley days

            At the turn of the 20th Century, automobiles were a rarity that few people could afford. If someone needed to get into Chambersburg from one of the nearby communities or get around town, he or she needed to ride a horse or walk.             That changed in 1902 as preliminary work began on planning a trolley route to service Chambersburg, but not one that was pulled by horses. The Chambersburg and Gettysburg Street Railway Company would be independently powered trolleys that would run from Chambersburg to Gettysburg.             The Public Opinion reported that, “Mr. Baumgardner declared it was so cold in December 1902 when surveying was done in the open country for the line that ‘we had to cut the ground with an ax before we could drive an iron pin in.’”             The plan was eventually for the Read more…