• Historic Shot of Canal Boat on the Canal

    Chesapeake & Ohio Canal

    National Historical Park DC,MD,WV

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  • Paw Paw Tunnel Towpath Open

    The rockslide at Paw Paw Tunnel towpath has been cleared. The towpath is now open for hikers and bikers.

  • Georgetown Boat Rides Suspended

    Boat rides at Georgetown are suspended until further notice. For a mule-drawn boat ride please contact Great Falls Tavern.

Canal Quartermaster

The C&O Canal Trust is seeking skilled, motivated volunteers for an exciting new program!

The C&O Canal Trust, in partnership with the National Park Service, will soon debut an exciting and unique program, Canal Quarters, in the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park. Canal Quarters will provide visitors to the park with an educational and interpretive experience unlike anything available elsewhere in our national park system.

Beginning this summer, visitors to the C&O Canal will be able to learn and experience first-hand what it was like to be a locktender on the 18S-mile long canal and stay overnight in a historic lockhouse.

Lockhouses 6 (Brookmont), 22 (Pennyfield), 28 (Point of Rocks), and 49 (Four Locks) are the first scheduled to open. These original structures, dating from the 1830s and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, served as homes for the locktenders, the men who opened and closed the lock gates for the mule-pulled canal boats, and their families.

Canal Quarters will require active and regular involvement by volunteer organizations and individuals to oversee and maintain the structures used by the public. The C&O Canal Trust is responsible for the recruitment, oversight, and recognition of the volunteer corps-known as Quartermasters-with the close involvement and oversight of the National Park Service.

Click here for information on becoming a Canal Quartermaster.

Did You Know?

Photo Monocacy Aqueduct along C&O Canal.

Aqueducts are water filled bridges. Aqueducts carried the canal and boat traffic over major waterways, like rivers.  Of the 11 aqueducts built along the canal, the Monocacy Aqueduct is the longest at 516 feet, its seven arches constructed mainly of stone quarried from nearby Sugarloaf Mountain.