Reflections On October 10, 1850, the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal was completed and opened for business along its entire 184.5 mile length from Washington, DC to Cumberland, Maryland. Sections of the canal opened for navigation as they were completed; from Georgetown in Washington, DC to Seneca, Maryland in 1831; then to Harpers Ferry in 1833; to Hancock in 1839; and finally to Cumberland in 1850. Before the C&O Canal was built, there were many attempts to improve transportation along the Potomac River. The Potomac was the only river on the east coast to bisect the Appalachian mountain barrier, and therefore was considered the best route for Western trade. As early as 1749, the Ohio Company of Virginia (a land and trading venture organized by prominent Englishmen and Virginians) established trails and wagon roads along the Upper Potomac River Valley, linking it to the Monongahela River (a tributary of the Ohio River). Another project before the establishment of the C&O Canal was the Potomac Company canal project. In 1772, George Washington founded the Potomac Company and proposed the construction of skirting canals on both the Virginia and Maryland side of the Potomac to bypass the river's five worst obstacles to transportation—the most serious one being Great Falls. A boat would be poled down the river and would detour around the rapids and falls by using the skirting canals and locks. The State of Maryland, however, had jurisdiction over the Potomac River and did not support the proposal. In 1784, after becoming a national hero, Washington tried again and finally received the support of both Virginia and Maryland, and, as the first president of the Potomac Company, he oversaw the building of skirting canals, locks, and channels on the Potomac River. Potomac River Navigation Virginia Legislature, January 4, 1784 George Washington Papers, 1741-1799 George Washington, who died in 1799, never saw his dream completed. The project was completed in 1802, making 220 miles of the Potomac between the Savage River and Washington, DC navigable for trade. The Potomac Company had its peak year in 1811, collecting more than $22,000 in tolls and shipping 16,350 tons of goods on 1,300 boats with a value of more than $925,000. But unpredictable currents, droughts and flooding still made transportation on the river a risky business. By the 1820s a proposal was made to build a permanent artificial canal along the river from the nation's capital all the way to the Ohio River. The rights of the old Potomac Company were transferred to a new company—the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company—and the new canal was begun. The groundbreaking for the "Great National Project," as it was called, took place on July 4, 1828—the same day as the groundbreaking for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. President John Quincy Adams turned the first spade full of earth for the canal at Little Falls, Maryland. From the very beginning, scarcity of building supplies, labor shortages and unrest, difficulties with excavation, and the high cost of land acquisition slowed down the project. At Point of Rocks, in Frederick County, Maryland, the C&O Canal Company competed with the B&O Railroad for property rights. The ensuing lawsuit delayed the project for four years. The last 50 miles of the canal was delayed another eleven years by serious financial problems and construction of the Paw Paw Tunnel. By the time the canal was opened in Cumberland, the B&O Railroad was already well established and operating in the Ohio Valley, and the C&O Canal Company dropped its plans to continue another 180 miles westward to Pittsburgh. Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, Lock 72, Jack E. Boucher, photographer, Oldtown vicinity, Allegany County, Maryland, between February 1-9, 1960. Built in America: Historic Building and Engineering, 1933-Present The C&O Canal operated between Cumberland, Maryland and Washington, DC for 74 years with peak use in the 1870s of about 750 canal boats hauling 663,500 tons of freight—mostly coal, flour, iron, and limestone. In 1899, however, a flood destroyed the canal, forcing the C&O Canal Company to go into bankruptcy. The B&O Railroad took over receivership of the canal and operated it until 1924 when another flood destroyed it and it was abandoned. In 1938, the U.S. Government purchased the property and hoped to restore it as a natural recreational area, but in the 1950s the federal government proposed building a highway on the property. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, an avid outdoorsman, opposed the highway construction and organized a committee to preserve the canal. These efforts led to the creation of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park. Learn more about the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal: Watch an early motion picture of a trip down the C&O Canal in a 1917 film entitled Down the Old Potomac from the collection Inventing Entertainment: The Edison

Grand Arts is pleased to announce the upcoming project, New Cornucopia and The Big IOU by sculptor John Salvest. New Cornucopia and The Big IOU consists of two separate but related artworks: IOU/USA, a temporary public monument in Memorial Hill/Penn Valley Park, and New Cornucopia, a sculpture at Grand Arts. Towering over visitors at a height of almost seven stories, IOU/USA is comprised of 105 multi-colored steel shipping containers, stacked seven high and fifteen across. The containers will be used as mosaic tesserae, with “I O U” spelled out on one side of the massive structure, and “U S A” on the other. Developed over the course of the past year, this striking installation is unfolding in Kansas City at a moment of exceptionally divisive national politics and public discourse. Says Salvest of IOU/USA: “The placement of the project near a regional branch of the Federal Reserve Bank, one of the main components of national economic policy, comes at a time when concern about the United States’ ballooning federal budget and foreign trade deficits is a major part of the national conversation. Its location between the Fed and the Pioneer Mother Memorial is also fitting in that, whereas the permanent public monument rightfully celebrates America’s and Kansas City’s triumphant past, the temporary public sculpture may generate meaningful discussion about where we, as a nation, are heading.” Grand Arts Artistic Director and project curator Stacy Switzer describes how the project is designed to embrace a multiplicity of viewpoints: “While some may interpret its site and orientation in proximity to the Kansas City Federal Reserve as a direct critique aimed at the activities of the central bank, others may view the project as a cathartic response—perhaps defiant, perhaps submissive—to the stresses of mounting personal debt which millions of us know intimately. Of course neither of these takes is exclusive of another, and activists of most any persuasion could read the work as a rallying cry for their own ideals. This multivalence is what makes IOU/USA so potent as a work of art in the public sphere.” At Grand Arts, New Cornucopia will feature a single shipping container with its contents spilling out into the gallery space. Harkening back to Flemish still life paintings of the 17th century, New Cornucopia offers a revised vision of plentitude and decay for our era of globalized trade. Details Installation of IOU/USA at Memorial Hill Park will begin August 15, 2011, and the project will open to the public on Friday, September 2, 2011 at 6pm. Thereafter, the installation will be accessible to visitors 24 hours a day, seven days a week through October 16, 2011. New Cornucopia will open on Friday, September 2 at 6pm, and can be viewed thereafter during regular gallery hours, Th-F 10am-5pm, and Sat 11am-5pm. Grand Arts will convene several public programs and workshops in connection with the project. Check back here for more information soon. Inquiries may be directed to: Seth Johnson Communications and Public Programs Coordinator Grand Arts 1819 Grand Blvd. Kansas City, MO 64108