Construction of the Patowmack Canal began in 1785, presided over by George Washington until he became the first president of the United States. His vision was to make the Potomac River navigable as far as the Ohio River Valley, believing that better transportation and trade would draw lands west of the Allegheny Mountains into America and “bind those people to us by a chain which never can be broken.”

The canal took 16 years to build, a difficult and dangerous task of getting around Great Falls, with locks requiring engineering skills and a labor force not easily found in 18th century America. Thousands of boats locked through at Great Falls, carrying flour, whiskey, tobacco and iron downstream and other manufactured products upstream.

However high construction costs, particularly of the Great Falls section, and insufficient revenues ultimately bankrupted the company that built the canal, which was turned over to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company (of the famous C&O Canal), and the Patowmack Canal was abandoned in 1830.

Standout, posted earlier: