Dismal Swamp Canal: America's Oldest Working Canal

The waterway running nearby is the Dismal Swamp Canal, the oldest continuously operating man-made canal in the United States. The idea traces back to seventeen sixty-three, when a young George Washington surveyed the Great Dismal Swamp and envisioned a channel connecting the waters of northeastern North Carolina to the Elizabeth River and Chesapeake Bay. Virginia and North Carolina authorized the project in the seventeen eighties and early seventeen nineties, and construction finally began in seventeen ninety-three.

Workers dug from both ends toward the middle through boggy, cypress-thick terrain, and the two trenches met in eighteen oh five. Immediately the canal opened a profitable trade corridor, moving grain, tobacco, lumber, and turpentine from the North Carolina interior north to the port at Norfolk. During the War of eighteen twelve the canal proved critical for coastal supply.

The Army Corps of Engineers manages it today, and it remains navigable by small vessels.