American Transportation and the Catoctin Aqueduct

Today we take for granted the U.S. Interstate Highway System, our railroads, our waterway transportation methods, and the network of airlines that can take us almost anyplace at any time.

We rarely stop to think about how the story of our country hinges heavily on the types of transportation created to take people west and to bring raw materials and products east. Devising these early transportation methods required great ingenuity of the men of that day, backbreaking labor, and a lot of good luck in coping with adversity.

As early as the 1780s George Washington predicted that waterways were going to be a primary means of transportation. In 1785 he founded the Potowmack Company for the purpose of making the Potomac River more navigable, but progress in water transport was slow. Materials and people could be sent downstream easily but traveling upstream could not be accomplished without mule or man trekking on land to tow the boat.

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