seasonal park ranger here at the chesapeake and ohio canal. i think we're going to cast off here shortly, but we'll go ahead and start and give you a brief history here on the canal. all right? it is called the chesapeake in ohio canal, but definitely doesn't reach the chesapeake bay or it doesn't go all the way up to the ohio river, which is our intention of the canal when we first started building it here in july 4th of 1828. we wanted to try to connect the eastern shore with what was considered the west back then. the west was up in ohio, pennsylvania, that area. we wanted to connect pittsburgh to the chesapeake bay, and so we started going on this canal. we tried earlier. it was george washington's dream to actually use the potomac river and transport goods. back then it was seen as a very reasonable thing to do, so he went ahead and had a canal

system built on that side by using locks to get around the great falls and the potomac river. however, it wasn't a very reliable usage. it didn't actually have long-time use. it was very kind of broken, didn't work very well. we went ahead and took his dream and built a canal right next to the potomac river so that we could use that water source but have something that's more controlled and reliable compared to the potomac river because you took a boat over the falls, you probably wouldn't last very long. we ran this canal from georgetown to cumberland. we kind of ran into some problems. also known as the appalachian mountains. we didn't really take that into consideration when we were building the canal itself, and so we kind of got stuck either going through the mountains or trying to go around. the canal is 184.5 miles long.

there are 75 locks, and we're going to go through one of them today. it's lock 20 that we're going to go through, and so what does the lock do? there is a very big elevation difference between georgetown and cumberland. as you can tell, georgetown is at or a little bit below sea level where cumberland is right along the edge of the appalachian mountains. therefore, it's about a 605 foot elevation difference, so that's a very big difference. what these lift locks do is they help us control that difference so that we're able to go both ways instead of just having one big river rushing downstream, and only being able to transport goods from cumberland to georgetown. so what's going to happen here? we have our bows in the front. we do things a little bit differently than back then. he has a tow line that's connected to the lock itself, and he is going to take that line and start pulling it in so that we can pull ourselves into the lock. hopefully you didn't have too big of a breakfast so you don't

make me do too much work. he is going to go ahead and start pulling us in. back then they would usually have their mules connected to the boat, and then the mules would be walking on the tow path, and they would be the one that is would actually pull us in. we wouldn't have any of the crew members actually doing any of that work. what would happen is once we were completely inside of the lock, we will go ahead and close the two downstream gates which we'll pass on our way in, and what that allows us to do is that allows us to make a sealed tight area so that no water can exit out so that we can actually raise water in that area. this system was actually created by a man way past our time. his name was leonardo da vinci. he created a lot of things. unfortunately, a lot of those things didn't really work, but this one actually was something that we decided was a really good idea. we did a few little modifications to the drawing that he had in a sketch book,

but most of it's all the same, and so what happens is this is one side of our lock door that we have here, and so with our lock door there is two little doors down here at the bottom. these little doors are called wickets, and these wickets are connected to stems that lead all the way up to the top. as you can see in front of you. we do since we're in a lock, we need a key to open our locks. we take a key, and we post it right here on top of our stem, and we go ahead and turn these doors down at the bottom so that it lets the water from upstream downstream. once again, key door, stem, and then we open those wicket doors down here at the bottom. and i did say every lock needs a key, and this is actually a key that was found in the bottom of the canal. we found when we took over the park, the national park service, it's made out of cast iron. it's about 10 to 15 pounds. pretty heavy.

this is what our lock keepers would carry around all day. and i'm going to stop talking because it's really hard to yell over the rushing water, okay? >> this part actually right here is the slowest part of the lock going so that we're almost equaling out so it's not rushing in like we saw obviously when we first opened those lock doors. it takes a little bit longer for that water to finally slowly

equal. we also have to open up those gates, make sure everything is good on the boat. you would have lock keepers that would our lock keepers were always in charge of that, and lock houses would be the one that is right here to my right. all right? the only difference about this lock house, though, it's a very special lock house because it was the only hotel that was here on the canal, and so the middle section of the great falls cavern was the original lock house. that was built in 1828, and it was where the first lock family would live, and then in 1831 we had finished the two additions on the north and the south end. the north end is the hotel part of the tavern.

that is where it was called the ballroom. >> it was just to get away from it, relax. they were able to provide a marriage license. if they were able to do that, then they could stay on the third floor, which was the attic or the honeymoon suite is what it was called back then, and so they could -- for a little extra charge they could go ahead and stay on that top floor, and then the south end of the tavern was the new lock house where the lock family stayed.

with this lock and its time, it was actually the lock keeper with ten to three different locks. they would lock 20 here, and they would tend to lock 19 and 18 a little further downstream. you got to imagine one man taking care of three different locks. it's a very hard job to do. especially as you saw all of the work that's done here at the lock. with three locks they would get about $250. that would allow him to actually hire an assistant so he would be able to go ahead and have him help with the rest of the locks. the canal company was very smart, and they decided that they needed to hire men that have large families because if you hire the husband of a large family, you get the rest of the family for free. the rest of the family would

help him as well working. the wife would help, and even some of the older children that they had, and they would all be able to stay here, ain the lock houses for free. they would get the $250 along with the house, and they would also get an acre of land, and so that acre of land what it allowed them to do is to be able to provide for themselves, and they were able to have produce and have any type of farm animal that is they needed like cows, chickens, pigs. anything they could have on their land so they would be able to sustain themselves. that $250 was per year. the peak of the canal, which was in the 1870s,ing any -- if you were waiting at a lock in a span of 30 minutes, there was about 15 to 20 boats that were waiting just at the lock, and so at the peak of its days, there was about 550 boats that were operational here on the canal. our mules, as you can all see, they're obviously not horses,

but a lot of people confuse them for horses and donkeys. they are a combination of the two. irts a very special combination. the man is going to be the donkey, and the female is going to be the mare or the horse, and that is how you're going to get a mule. you need a female horse and a male donkey. if you did it the other way around where you had a male horse and a female donkey, you would get something that's called a henne, and hennes don't have the same type of working genes that we want our mules to have here on the canal, so we decided mules would be a better fit for us here on the canal, but all throughout history there is a lot of uses of horses so you had, leak, the pony express. they would pull wagons. they were used throughout history for various things. the question that always comes up is why are mules used here instead of horses, and there is some various reasons for that.

you can tell the characteristics that the mules get from the donkey, you can obviously see their ears. their ears make them very aware of their surroundings. their feet also are a different shape compared to horses. they're more oval shaped compared to horses where they're more circular. so what that does is that makes them very sure-footed. that allows them to know where they're placing their foot at all times. they're not very skittish like horses are. horses at the sight of anything they tend to rear up and it takes a while for them to calm back down. whereas our mules so they know where they're facing their feet at all times, they're not as jumpy. back then there would be snakes that would fall in the toe path constantly, and so with the horse you get it reared up, and then you would have to wait for it to calm down. with the mule it would just stop because it knows where it's placing its foot, and it sees there's a snake there. it would go ahead and wait for you to move it out of the way so that it wouldn't cause any harm to itself.

mules are smarter than horses are. with a horse you can work a horse to death because horses are there to please their master. they want to do nothing more than to make you happy, and so if you had a horse here on the canal, you could literally run it dead into the ground for working, whereas mules, i'm sure, you guys have all heard the saying stubborn as a mule. you can now take that as a compliment because they're just saying that you're smart. they're not saying that you're stubborn. with a mule you can't work it to death. after about six hours it's going to stop working and say i'm not trying to hurt myself. therefore, you cannot push me any further, and i'm just going to stand here until you change me out. our mules today, it looks like are dolly and cuba. they are two of our youngest mules. dolly is 11, and cuba is 10. you can see that they are connected together by two chains that are in the middle of them.

there is also a metal bar that connects the tow line to our boat. they are currently pulling us at the speeding rate of about 2 miles an hour maybe. all right. they could pull us a little bit faster, but we don't usually want to go any faster than that, and back then they couldn't go any faster than this. if you look on the sides of the canal, you can say that some spots are kind of covered up with rocks, but most of the time there are no rocks that are covering the sides of the canal. if you had a boat in a went any faster than 4 miles an hour, we would start to cause a wake, and with that wake since you had 550 boats here on the peak of this canal, you would end up causing the wake to rush up on the sides of the canal and cause erosion.

that would go ahead and sink the sides of our canal in. that's why we couldn't go any faster than that. so our typical boats here on the canal, these are what our barges would look like. they were about 90 to 91 feet long and about 14.5 feet wide. i did say we like to cut them close. we're on a tight budget here on the canal, so we have about three inches of clearance on each side of our boat to come in to the lock.

the tiller would be in the back. this is the stern. with the stern you have this cabin right here. this is called the family cabin. this family cabin was 12.5 by 12.5 feet. it was very small. the only space that you had in there for room -- you would have your cooking would be done back here. you would have a toilet back here, which the toilet was a bucket. then you would have, like, maybe one or two beds that were back here. up here in the front, this is our bow, and this little barn right here was the barn. it was where our extra set of mules were held. i said they would only work six hours. we would have two sets of mule making four mules in total so that we could go ahead and change them out every six hours or about 15 miles so that they can continue working throughout the day. on top of the barn is where most of the family would sleep because there were also very big

families here on the canal boats. if there wasn't enough room back here, they would sleep in the barn. all throughout the middle of our barge, sths where our cargo was kept. coal was our main cargo here on the canal. it was used to heat the homes through the various ports that were in between cumberland and georgetown. used for cook and goods like that. you do have goods coming from georgetown as well. georgetown was kind of the factory town back then. you did have mills that would produce your grains and wheat and everything. you would have timber that would come from there. any type of furniture, textile goods, clothing. all of that coming from georgetown. it would be shipped up north to the various ports in between there. this was a two-way kind of traffic back then, and there was only one tow path that we had that was used for our mules.

the question -- i'm sure you are all thinking of it -- is how are two boats in fear going in opposite directions going to pass each other? we're going to all pretend that there is a boat coming downstream right now at us. they are loaded up with coal, and so if they're loaded up with coal, that means they're about 120 tons, and we're about, hmm, eight tons maybe. that means that they have the right-of-way because it's harder to start and stop their boat than it would be our boat. i would go ahead and tell our mule driver that we need to stop our boat. they would yell a canal saying, and the canal saying is -- that was our canal saying that we used, and all that means is our mule stopped right on cue, and then would push him to the furthest side of the tow path,ing and then with that we would push our boat to the furthest side of the burm side,

and that would let our tow line sink to the bottom of the canal. once it has sunk, the down side boat can cross over our tow line, and what's going to happen now is we're going to turn our boat around. back then, like i said, you wouldn't be able to do this because your boats were a whole lot longer than this, and we are actually cutting it really close turning us around. so, like i said, these were very family-oriented boats. we would have the father that would usually be on the front of the boat. he would be in charge of looking out for any dangers, making sure the tow line was safe or there was nothing that was in our way.

the children if they were of a certain age, about 9 years old, we would actually get them right to work, and we would go ahead and have them walking with our mules so at the age of 9 they would go ahead and start working. i promise it wasn't child labor. if they were any younger than the age of 9, we obviously had to do something with them. they couldn't work, but they couldn't be running around the boat causing any problems. what we would do is we would take something that looked like this. this is an old mule harness, and we would go ahead and take this top section right here. we would go ahead and take the rest of that off and use this top tekz right hersection right. you can see there's a rope attached to it. you might see where this is going. if not, i have a picture. it's awesome. this is a family in georgetown. the mom is off to the side doing her laundry, and she didn't want her kids running around the port of georgetown, so they went ahead and tied them up.

yeah. so in the winter we would actually close for four months. it would usually start in early november. we would go ahead and close down and then wouldn't open back up until maybe april is what we would do. if -- when we did close down, if there was a lot of times that we did our maintenance here on the canal because back then it had to be kept about six feet deep because your draft of heaviest boat was about four. you had to make sure you had enough room in between the bottom of the canal and the bottom of your boat. obviously we have little creeks that run into the canal, and they bring in sediment. that ends up causing sand bars or just kind of making it hard for us to maintain that six feet, so in the winter months when we closed down, there was no boats running. we would go ahead and drain out certain sections of the canal so that we would be able to use a good old shovel and go ahead and dig out that -- the dirt that was in there so that we could get it at that minimum of six

feet deep. once we finally got the maintenance all done, we would go ahead and let water back in and how we would do that is we couldn't use the potomac, but it's a good water source. we would have locks that are called inlet lox, and it was a two-part system so the inlet locks connect right to the potomac river, and there is also a dam that's connected to the locks, so we go ahead and allow the water from the potomac to rush into the canal, and then we would have a backup source of water just in case we had problems with the potomac river. and the only the first 22 miles of the canal nowadays actually has water, and then it gets very spotty throughout. it doesn't sound like our kids had a very good life, but during the four months that they were closed, the canal, they would actually go to school for those four months, and our school system back then was very different. you had a series of books that you had to go through, so it

doesn't matter how old you were or what grade you were particularly in. if you couldn't get past the first book that you had, then you couldn't move on to the second one, and what the first book consisted of, it was mostly things like your a, b, c's, how to count, and also how to write. then once you got to the second and third book that were a little more complicated. you learned how to put words together, how to add and subtract and things like that. they didn't need to know much here on the canal as a canal kid, but they did need to know the basics of adding and subtracting, reading, writing, and all of that. however, our lock keepers were on call 24-7. they were constantly working no matter the time of the day. they always had to be ready to work, and how they would know that they needed to have the lock ready and everything is usually on the boat we would have a horn. as you guys heard when you were called here on the boat. we would blown that will horn, and our captain would yell so it

notified the lock keeper so they need to be ready. the good thing about lock houses is they are actually all white. it makes them easier to see through the night. the canal here has lots of history. we as the canal company actually went bankrupt because as the potomac thing our water source. it also causes a lot of trouble and damage. whenever it floods, unfortunately, we flood as well. it was a very pricey job to be done here. it took a lot more money than we had expected to actually finish the completion of the canal, which stopped in 1850 when it reached in cumberland. we ended up going bankrupt, and our competitors at the time, the baltimore and ohio railroads

actually took over operations for us here in the canal, and so they kind of made sure that we didn't use it as -- as frequently as we did in the 1870s because obviously they wanted to be the main transport for any coal or cargo. they went ahead and took over operations for us. they did do -- they did have to do a lot of reconstruction after flooding from the potomac. the last -- the last flood they had when they were in control of us was in 1924. it was too much money to do the repairs that needed to be done after that flood. they went ahead and closed down the chesapeake and ohio for good. in 1924. back then there was only about six boats running here on the canal, so it wasn't really in it use as much as it was. [ horn blowing ] >> so it wasn't in as much use

as it was because the railroads had ended up getting the technology that they needed, like the air brakes and the couplings between the two carts. they became more efficient in transporting those goods. in 1924 we weren't used as much, so we went ahead and closed down the canal, and then about 12 years later the national park service actually went ahead and bought the chesapeake and ohio canal from the railroad for about $2 million. they got a really big steal for all the acreage that they got. in the 1950s they decided that with all this land and all of it dug out already, that it actually would make a really good pathway to actually create a highway on it known as the sea mill parkway is what they wanted to call it. they wanted to go ahead and remove all the historical properties that were here so that they could create that

highway to connect cumberland to gornltown. the reason why our canal is here today is because there was one man that is very fond of the canal and who is also a supreme court justice at the time. he loved the canal very much and was very saddened that the fact of the national park was a good idea to turn this into a parkway. what he did is he went ahead and actually challenged two watchmen and post editors that had wrote an editorial saying that it would be a good idea to change this into a parkway. he went ahead and challenged them to hike the whole length of the canal. remember the whole length is 184.5 miles long. after that very long hike, they saw all the beautiful things that were here on the canal and decided that maybe it's want too much of a good idea to actually turn this into a parkway.

instead of raising the water, we're going to lower the water, and we're going to do it the same way that we did it when we came in the first time. we're going to look at doors. we're going to turn that lock key so we can go ahead and open those doors and let that water out.

>> we went ahead and opened up our gates, and, unfortunately, what that means is once our gates are opened, we have to get back to shore somehow, and i, along with auerbach mule are the person that has to get you back to shore, so with that being said, i actually have to get off the boat, unfortunately. i hope you guys enjoyed your ride here on the charles s. mercer, and if you do have last minute questions, please don't hesitate to ask our bowsman or tiller. upon the national park service, thank you for joining us here on the charles f. mercer, and i hope you enjoyed your ride, okay? [ applause ] >> you did a fine job. >> thank you.

>> you have been watching our weekly series "american artifacts" on c-span 3's american history tv. you can view this and all our own programs on-line at c-span.org/history. >> thursday marks the 100th anniversary of the national park service, and we'll be live at the robert e. lee memorial in arlington national cemetery for an event on the centennial and a look at some of the current projects the park services working on. that's at 7:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span 3's american history tv. american history tv airs on c-span 3 every weekend telling the american story through evented, interviews, and visits to historic locations. this month american history tv

is in primetime to introduce you to programs you could see every weekend on c-span 3. our features include lectures on history, vichts to college classrooms across the country, to hear lectures by top history professors. american artifacts takes a look at the treasures at u.s. historic sites, museums, and archives. real america, revealing the 20th century through archival films and newsreels. the civil war where you hear about the people who shape the civil war and reconstruction, and the presidency foeks on u.s. presidents and first ladies to learn about their politics, poefpoe policies and legacies. all of this is primetime and on the weekend on american history tv on c-span 3. >> next on american history tv's real america from 1935 the land of the giants. this 24-minute interior department film documents the efforts of the civilian conservation corps to develop california's national and state parks during the great

depression. the film promotes the value of the c.c.c. and shows the details of the daily life for the men in the work camps. ♪

>> the home of the californiacs was the first state park state. back in 1865 the federal government gave her the yosemite valley, which was a state park until it went back to uncle sam again in 1890 to become part of yosemite national park. at the turn of the century he made a second effort buying 9,000 acres of forest and creating california redwood state park. the tall tapering giants of the tree world are largely response i -- responsible for the fact that they have a state park system. one of the finest in existence. during the world war an extraordinary organization, the save the redwoods league was brought into existence, chiefly

to save as much as possible on the redwood forest in the state. out of the work of this league there's a movement for a series of parks to save the best of california's natural beauty. 3-1 californians voted for $6 million for parks. the bond act required that of that $6 million has been spent. for it california has obtained mountain and sea, forest and desert, canyons, stream and waterfall carpeted with smooth giant fern from which streams run clean high to the sky and are found in california's state parks, saved forefrver from thex for billions to behold them with all and reverence.

california's redwood state park consisting of some 10,000 acres, mostly redwood forests, two and a half hours difference from san francisco in santa cruz county was the first california state park to be established when the golden state set out determinely to create a system of state-owned recreational areas second to none. it is a magnificent monument to those stately giants of the forest world. the park is splendidly equipped to serve the requirements of the visiting public and in the summer season is constantly throged with pleasure seekers. because of the civilian conservation corps under the ecw plan speeded up a plan of continued development that will take many years to complete.

additional roads and trails are needed, or it must be remembered that the park covers almost 16 square miles. the trail building isn't easy. for, there are timbered canyons and real mountains to be climbed. bridges are being put in, constructed entirely of bold, naked material. timbers are easy to procure.