NPS Photo

The Round Top Cement Company provided quality cement for many years. Some of the cement was used on the C&O Canal.

The Round Top Cement Company was located at mile 127.4 of the canal. As land was being surveyed for the canal, investigators found a large outcrop of limestone along the river, on the downslope of a hill called Round Top. A Mr. Shafer immediately built a plant to turn the limestone into cement on what would become the berm side of the canal. A berm is generally a bank of earth; in this case, it is the side of the canal where the towpath does not run. The river provided water power until the canal was built, and then the plant used water from the canal. As of 1882, the plant employed 100 workers, and it could produce up to 2200 barrels of cement per week.

Questions for Round Top:

1. Look at Drawing 1. For which parts of the canal itself might the cement manufactured here by used?

2. The business dwindled and came to halt in the 1920s. How do you think the decline of the use of canals impacted the business of the Round Top Cement company?