A partial collection of people, places and events that have made
Chesapeake City the unique and desirable location that it has become today.
The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal was purchased by the U.S. Government in 1919 for the sum of $2,500,000. The locks were removed and the canal was converted to a sea-level canal between 1919 and 1927.
The Middletown Transcript - May 19, 1927
The New C. & D. Canal Was Opened on
Saturday
Representatives of the Army and Navy,
yachtsmen, business and commercial men, statesmen and citizens of prominence to
the number of close to 1,500 took part on Saturday in the formal opening of the
reconstructed Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. Built more than a century ago as a
private enterprise as a toll canal with three locks, the rebuilt waterway is now
a sea-level canal with nothing to obstruct the free passage of vessels from the
Delaware River to the Chesapeake Bay. The locks are gone, the pumping station at
Chesapeake City, Md. is now a memory and five massive vertical lift bridges span
the waterway.
President Suits Bridge
Promptly at 11:30 o'clock
President Coolidge pressed a button in the temporary White House in Washington,
which inaugurated the ceremonies incident to the formal opening of the canal.
The pressure on the button set the wheels in motion that raised the vertical
lift bridge at Reedy Point and also released a furled flag which surmounts one
of the towers of the bridge and allowed hundreds of printed greetings from the
President to flutter down on the large throng gathered at that point to attend
the ceremonies.
Due to the storm and lateness of the hour of the returning flotilla that paraded
through the waterway, a last minute change in the program translated the
exercises from the platform erected at Reedy Point to the second deck of the
City of Chester, the vessel carrying the guests of the Atlantic Deeper
Waterways Association.
Hundreds Are Present
The formal opening was scheduled with
pomp and color despite the unfavorable weather conditions which prevailed.
Hundreds of residents of Delaware and Maryland lined the vantage points along
the course of the canal and cheered the vessels as they slowly steamed through
from Reedy Point to Chesapeake City, Md. Many homes along the canal were
profusely decorated with flags and bunting and hundreds of automobiles lining
the highways tooted their horns and sirens as the occupants standing along the
canal banks undaunted by the rain cheered and waved their handkerchiefs or small
American flags.
(News article courtesy of Joseph M. White, Hanover, PA)
Click here for early 1900's canal worker interview
C&D Canal 1820's thru
1918
C&D Canal 1961 thru 1999
C&D Canal 2000 to
Present
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