Keeping us Connected

Slanted Wayside Exhibit:
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
449 words / Total Audio Description: 2 minutes, 29 seconds

Site Information
119 words / 39 seconds

This is an audio description of an interpretive sign titled Keeping Us Connected. The sign is divided into 2 parts. On the left is a graphic panel measuring 3 feet (1 meter) wide by 2 feet (0.5 meters) tall. On the right, a tactile map is 1 foot (0.3 meters) wide by 2 feet (0.5 meters) tall. An audio speaker with push buttons and two solar panels separates the graphic panel from the map. All parts are set within an angled black metal frame with two legs that raise the sign 3 feet (1 meter) off the ground. Behind the panel is a grassy area edged by short black posts connected by black chain and then Constitution Avenue NW.

Exhibit Panel Content
273 words / 1 minute, 31 seconds

The title reads Keeping Us Connected.

A hand drawn topographic map from 1827 shows the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. A black label with white text, located on the far-right side of the panel, readsYou Are Here. Moving left across the map, a solid, light blue line depicts the canal route as it winds left through the current state boundaries, labelled in dark text: Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland. Once the canal route hits the next state border on the left side on the panel, labelled in dark text as Pennsylvania, the solid blue line becomes a dotted line, suggesting an incomplete canal route. In the bottom lefthand corner of the panel, an illustration of a wooden canal boat has cut-away portions revealing workers in the back of the boat, goods in the middle, and mules loaded in the front.

Dark text, located at the top of the panel, reads:

Long before interstates or internet, canals connected the growing United States. From 1831 to 1924, the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Canal brought goods, people, mail, and news 184.5 miles between western Maryland and Georgetown, DC. The C&O Extension ran where Constitution Avenue is today. It connected the C&O Canal to the bustling 17th Street Wharf and the Washington City Canal.

Near the boat illustration, a caption in dark text reads:

Long, low canal boats made slow, painstaking journeys down the C&O Canal. Hundreds of people made the trip possible, from mule tenders to lockkeepers.

In the bottom right-hand corner of the panel, a dark circle lined in light blue with white text reads:

How do you stay connected to people far away today?

Tactile Map
57 words / 19 seconds

The title reads C&O Canal Extension.A tactile map to the right of the panel and audio description buttons outlines the former location of the C&O Canal Extension, hugging the right bank of the Potomac River. A legend with raised letters below the map contains text that reads:

You Are Here
North
White House
Water
Washington Monument

[End of description.]