Paw Paw Tunnel

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Paw Paw Tunnel
Paw paw east.jpg
East entrance
Overview
Location Allegany County, Maryland
Coordinates Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
Operation
Work begun June 1836
Opened 1850
Owner National Park Service
Traffic Canal and towpath/trail
Character Boats, pedestrians, bicycles, horses
Technical
Length 3,118 feet (950 m)
Tunnel clearance 24 feet (7.3 m)
Width 27 feet (8.2 m)
Paw Paw Tunnel is located in Maryland
Paw Paw Tunnel
Paw Paw Tunnel

The Paw Paw Tunnel is a 3,118-foot (950 m) long canal tunnel on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C&O) in Allegany County, Maryland.[1] Located near Paw Paw, West Virginia, it was built to bypass the Paw Paw Bends, a 6-mile (9.7 km) stretch of the Potomac River containing five horseshoe-shaped bends. The town, the bends, and the tunnel take their name from the pawpaw trees that grow prolifically along nearby ridges.

History

Aerial view of Paw Paw area. Tunnel is marked on photo. Note the cliffs on the Maryland (left) side of the river, which were a headache for the Canal planners

At Paw Paw, the canal engineers had a quandary with no easy solutions: follow the river, with its cliffs which would have required crossing over to West Virginia, damming the river to make a slackwater and hacking out from the cliffs on the Maryland side, or making a tunnel. The newly appointed engineer, Charles B. Fisk, managed to convince the board of directors of the tunnel, and the tunnel plan was approved in February 1836, with an expected completion date of July 1838.[2]

Lee Montgomery,[2] a Methodist minister who had experience from building the canal tunnel for the Union Canal[3] was awarded the contract on March 15, 1836.[4] Construction on the tunnel began in 1836. Unfortunately for Montgomery, the Irish workers were not skilled at tunnel work, so he obtained English masons, English and Welsh miners, and some "Dutch" [i.e. German] labourers.[3] More unfortunately, this caused racial tensions which exploded into violence in 1837 and 1838, specifically between the Irish and everyone else; destroying the tavern at Oldtown, burning shanties, and the like.[5] There were more riots in 1839 at Little Orleans.[5] Montgomery succeeded in boring the tunnel through on June 5, 1840, at a point 1505 feet from the south portal,[6] but did not finish it.[2]

Due to construction and financial problems, there was no work done from 1841 to 1847.

In 1848, a subcontract was let to McCulloch and Day to finish the tunnel. The tunnel was opened for traffic (and essentially completed) in 1850, but the brick liner was not finished until after the tunnel was opened. The construction costs were $616,478.65.[4]

The project was planned to be completed in two years, but there were many difficulties in the process of construction. The construction company seriously underestimated the difficulty of the job. Violence frequently broke out between various gangs of immigrant laborers of different ethnicities, and wages were often unpaid due to the company's financial problems.[7] The tunnel was finally completed but nearly bankrupted the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company. The lengthy construction and high cost forced the company to end canal construction at Cumberland, Maryland, in 1850, rather than continue on to Pittsburgh as originally planned. Though never one of the longest tunnels in the world, it remains one of the greatest engineering feats of its day.[8]

In 1872, a semaphore signal was installed at the west end of the tunnel to control traffic.[9]

Boatmen and the tunnel

Film (part 2) which includes footage of the Paw Paw tunnel (at 0:30) during Canal Operating days. Some information in the film is incorrect: the tunnel was in use since 1850, not 1840, and is 3,118 feet (950 m) long, not a mile long.

Boatmen could usually tell if another boat was in the tunnel because the water level would be down about 4 inches (10 cm). Apparently the loaded boat going downstream had the right of way, but that was not often honored.[10]

The tunnel was so narrow that nobody could pass between the mules and the side of the tunnel. There are testimonies of playing music (to hear the echo), or singing in the tunnel to keep up courage.[11]

The tunnel today

Today the Paw Paw Tunnel can be easily explored with a flashlight, as the towpath is still intact. Trekkers can return via the tunnel, or hike back over the 2-mile-long (3.2 km) Tunnel Hill Trail. This passes interpretive markers of the German and Irish workers who lived along the path during the tunnel's construction.

A rockslide in January 2013 closed the trail east of the tunnel for four months, so the tunnel could not be reached from the east side.[12] It reopened on April 17, 2013.[13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. p. 198
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Hahn, p. 200
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Hahn, p. 199
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. p. 509
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Davies, p. 511
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Hahn, Boatmen, p. 69
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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