For years, I’ve heard of Great Falls, Virginia. It’s a bedroom community near Washington, DC. However, I didn’t know there’s actually a set of waterfalls – called Great Falls – and the National Park Service operates it as a park with plenty of hiking trails.
The Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O) Canal National Historic Site operates the total site which runs 184 miles along the Potomac River from Cumberland, Maryland to Georgetown, Virginia. Although quiet, the area was once a commercial hub of activity.
C & O Canal
George Washington’s dream of the original canal was realized after his presidential tenure. Seeking to make the Potomac River navigable, he and others founded the Potomac Company in 1785. The company’s mission was to connect Washington, DC to the Ohio River, which proved more complicated than the owners anticipated. Unfortunately, the company went out of business after completing only five locks on the river.
Years later, the C&O Canal Company revisited those plans and overtook the abandoned locks built by the Potomac Company. From 1828 to 1850, workers connected the Potomac River from Georgetown to Cumberland, Maryland. The system featured 74 lift locks at a cost of $11 million. Goods would float down the river on canal barges (pictured above) to the East Coast. Then, mules using the adjacent 12-foot-wide towpath would pull the barges upstream again. The trip took an average of four days to complete.
As you can imagine, floods caused problems on the canal. The flood of 1889 shut the canal down for almost 18 months, allowing the railroads to get the upper hand. By the time of the 1924 flood, roads and trucks competed for business, and the C&O Canal shuttered for good. During the Depression, the CCC restored some 22 miles of the lower canal, but more floods and WWII thwarted plans to reopen it.
In 1971, Supreme Court Justice William Douglas pushed for the preservation of the canal, and the C&O Canal Historic Park opened to the public. Today, visitors use the towpaths as hiking and biking trails. The site encompasses six visitor centers: Georgetown, Great Falls Tavern, Williamsport, Brunswick, Hancock, and Cumberland. The canal also goes through Harpers Ferry, WV, the home of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.
The Great Falls
With over 15 miles of hiking trails, we looked forward to exploring the area. The most popular is the Billy Goat Trail, offering scenic views and a few rock scrambles. However, DC was in the middle of a heat wave, so we opted for the short 1.4-mile round-trip hike on the Overlook Trail. A map of the visitor center’s hiking trails is here.
We walked about a half-mile past several locks before coming to the Charles F. Mercer, a replica barge that takes visitors on a journey through a lock. While the barge wasn’t operating on the day we visited, I took a trip on one of the canal barges back in 1989.
From here, we turned on a boardwalk path offering magnificent views of Baby Sister Falls. With the rushing water, scenery, and absence of buildings, it was hard to remember we were only about 12 miles from Washington, DC!
We continued walking onto Olmsted Island for a view of the Great Falls. I quickly saw how this part of the Potomac, with craggy rocks, proved challenging to George Washington and his business partners. Here, the river drops 76 feet in just one mile. We could even see viewpoints along the Virginia side at Great Falls Park before turning around and heading to the tavern.
The Tavern
Since the C&O required a lockkeeper to manage boat traffic from sunrise to sunset, lockkeepers lived in small houses near each lock. The Crommelin House was built in 1830 at Lock 20. The following year, the lockkeeper (W.W. Fenion) added a kitchen and other buildings to accommodate weary travelers for 25 cents a night. The tavern also served meals and drew tourists from DC who would take packet boats to see the falls – an 8-hour journey. Despite the floods of 1889 and 1924, the inn continued to operate. After a fire broke out in 1948, the NPS restored the property and opened a museum.
Inside the tavern, we learned more about the construction of the C&O Canal through pictures and maps on the wall. The tavern serves as the park’s visitor center, selling tickets for the canal boat rides and souvenirs.
Conclusion
The cost to enter the park is $15 or free for NPS passholders. The website for the C&O Canal National Historic Site is here. Click here for the Maryland side and the Great Falls Tavern Visitor Center. Click here for information about Great Falls Park on the Virginia side.
If you want to sleep in a lockkeeper’s house, the C&O Trust provides overnight accommodations at seven canal lockhouses here.