The Newtown Pentacle

Wednesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The extant location which I’d been heading towards all morning, after leaving Pittsburgh at about 5 in the morning, was in Cumberland, Maryland. Pictured above and below is the C&O canal, aka the Chesapeake & Ohio canal, aka the ‘Grand Old Ditch.’ This wasn’t what I had traveled for, but what? I’m going to ignore it? Pfah.

The C&O Canal extends from Washington D.C. to Cumberland, some 184.5 miles. Its construction began in 1828 (inspired by the early success of ‘Clinton’s Folly’ in New York), there are 74 locks along its length, and its current status is that of a National Park. Its designed function was to provide a transportation pathway for coal, mined out of the Appalachian region in the ‘panhandle’ of Western Maryland and Southwestern Pennsylvania, to markets and industry in the nation’s Capital and surrounding area.

The C&O canal was completed in 1850, but was already redundant the day that the ribbons were cut as the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad had gotten here first in 1842.

Chesapeake Bay on the Atlantic Seaboard, however, was connected to mountain girdled Cumberland via this canal, which was a historic infrastructure project originally proposed and championed by George Washington and ultimately funded during the Presidency of James Monroe. The original plan for this canal was to connect all the way to the Ohio River near Pittsburgh, but the rail people had already out competed the canal people on that one, and the Cumberland to Pittsburgh/Ohio River section never happened.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I’m willing to go out on a limb here, and predict that 100 years from now the United States will be revisiting this sort of intra city cargo transportation methodology in the post fossil fuel era. The way that these canals worked involved using pack animals walking on a tow path which were harnessed to long boats or barges, providing motive power to these vessels and floated along on the captive water.

The boats which used this canal were specified as being no more than 90 feet stem to stern, with a beam (width) of 14.6 feet.

A modern day 40 TEU cargo container’s dimensions are 40′ long x 8′ wide x 8′ 6” high, so…

It won’t be donkeys hauling any 22nd century cargo boxes around, however, instead it’ll likely be some sort of unmanned electric tractor tied off to the barges which will move at a fairly slow but steady pace. The drainage ditches along the interstate highway system should provide a good idea of where such canals will be constructed. These canals would also be handy infrastructure to have, for overflow during heavy rainfall and springtime floods, as well.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Cumberland itself is a city of about 20,000 people found along the Potomac River, and the Cumberland Metro area has about 100,000 people in its extended territory. Found on the other side of the North Branch of the Potomac River in this area is West Virginia. Cumberland was a jumping off point for overland expeditions in the post American Revolution period, has a storied industrial past, and like much of the Appalachian region – has been in a financial and demographic free fall since WW2. There are 318 metropolitan areas – as identified by the Federal Government – in the United States and Cumberland ranks as #305 in terms of wealth. Average median income in Cumberland for a single earner household is just $25,142, and for families it’s $34,500. That’s the 50% mark, I’d point out, as in half of the population scratches by on less than those numbers. Close to 20% of the population in Cumberland lives below the Federal Poverty line, and the city is regionally infamous for high levels of opiate addiction. The population has been declining steadily since 1950, and over the course of the last half of the 20th century it lost several of its major industrial employers. Observationally, it wasn’t all that bad, but I was visiting the city center and historic district – not driving around up in the hills and neighborhoods where these conditions exist.

The good news here is that they have some of the most inexpensive real estate on the east coast of the United States, and that their cost of living is the sixth lowest in the entire country. Saying that, I can now tell you from experience that whereas your rent burden is far lower in this region than it is back in NYC, everything else costs the same – health insurance, services like internet and telephone, all that.

Now, you know I didn’t leave the house at 5 in the morning just to take a few pics of an empty but historic canal, right? Wait till you see what else Cumberland has going on, in tomorrow’s post at this – your Newtown Pentacle.

“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle

Buy a book!

“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.