Wet spring morning with a beautiful ride (except for detour)

So many egrets! Kept pace NPS truck for about a mile. Nearly done with this C&O adventure. 

Mile Marker 14.4

Washington Aqueduct

Every day, more than 150 million gallons of water from the Potomac River detours into the Washington Aqueduct system to serve the water needs of the nation’s capital. George Washington devised the plan for this system in 1798, but no one took the project seriously for another 50 years. The aqueduct was built in 1859 by the Army Corps of Engineers and in 1864, water from the Potomac finally began making its 12-mile, mostly underground trip to the Georgetown Reservoir. The gatehouse for the original intake system, built from distinctive red Seneca sandstone, still stands next to the Great Falls Tavern. (Source: www.canaltrust.org)

Mile Marker 13.8

Stop Gate

Stop gates were constructed along the C&O Canal to protect the canal, its structures, and communities built around the canal from flood waters. This stop gate was originally built in 1852 and reconstructed with a modern winch system by the National Park Service in 2009. Located not far from the Great Falls Visitor Center, the top portion of the stop gate resembles a covered bridge but it’s actually a winch house. It stores a winch and planks of wood, just a little wider than the foundation. When the river floods, the stop gate is deployed to create a temporary dam that protects the canal downstream. The winch is used to lower the planks, one at a time, through the floor and into grooves that have been cut into both sides of the stone foundation. Some water does pass through, but the majority is stopped from rushing downstream into the canal and causing damage. The use of seven stop gates reduced flood damage and prevented additional devastation throughout the canal’s history. (Source: www.canaltrust.org)

Mile marker 7.6                     

Glen Echo Park and Clara Barton House

The bluffs above Lock 7 were the site of a Chautauqua, an adult education and social movement in the United States, highly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This one had only one successful season in 1891. Glen Echo Amusement Park then occupied the site, becoming the area’s premier amusement park for many years, until 1968. The National Park Service acquired the site, removed some of the amusement structures, and opened the park to the public in 1970. Since then the park has offered cultural and educational programming, and visitors can ride the historic Dentzel Carousel.

Just upstream from Glen Echo is the Clara Barton House, where Clara Barton spent the last 15 years of her life. Barton, known as the “angel of the battlefield,” was a volunteer nurse and relief worker during the Civil War. She later founded the American chapter of the Red Cross. Barton lived in the house, which served as a working headquarters for her relief operations, until her death in 1912. (Source: www.canaltrust.org)