6 Brunswick
The C&O Canal’s little
Brunswick Visitor Center
(%301-834-7100; 40 West
Potomac Street, Brunswick;
rail museum adult/child $7/4;
h10am-2pm Fri, to 4pm Sat,
1-4pm Sun) doubles as the
Brunswick Rail Museum.
As quiet as this town is,
it was once home to the
largest rail yard (7 miles
long) owned by a single
company in the world.
Those days are long past,
but the museum will
appeal to trainspotters,
and you have to have a
heart of stone not to be
charmed by the 1700-sq-
ft model railroad that
depicts the old Baltimore
& Ohio Railway.The Drive » Go west on
Knoxville Rd until it becomes
MD-180; follow this road and
merge onto US 340 and follow it
for 5 miles to Harpers Ferry.7 Harpers Ferry
In its day, Harpers Ferry
was the gateway to the
American West. This
geographic significance
turned the town into
a center of industry,
transportation, and
commerce. Today you’d
hardly know the Ferry
was once one of the most
important towns in the
country, but it does make
for a bucolic, calculatedly
cute day trip.If you’d like to pause
here for a break from the
towpath you’ll want to
first get a pass from the
Harpers Ferry National
Historic Park Visitor
Center (%304-535-6029;
http://www.nps.gov/hafe; 171
Shoreline Dr; per person/
vehicle $5/10; h8am-5pm),
which opens the town’s
small public museums,
located within walking
distance of each other,
for your perusal. All of
these little gems are
worth their own small
stop; one deals with the
area’s importance to the
development of modern
firearms and African
American history.54 p201
TRIP HIGHLIGHTTHE C&O: YESTERDAY AND TODAY
In case you were wondering: no one uses the C&O Canal today for its original
purpose of moving goods. Originally plotted as a transportation line between the
Eastern seaboard and the industrial heartland west of the Appalachian Mountains,
the ‘Grand Old Ditch’ was completed in 1850, but by the time it opened, it was as
advanced as a Walkman in a store full of iPhones. The Baltimore and Ohio Railway
was already trucking cargo west of the Alleghenies; in a stroke of alphabetical
justice, the B&O had supplanted the C&O.
A series of floods, coupled with the canal’s own lack of profitability, led to the
death of the C&O in 1924, and for some 30 years plans for the land were thrown
back and forth: should the canal towpath become a parkway or a park? US
Supreme Court Justice William O Douglas firmly believed the latter. The longest-
serving justice in history was an environmentalist who argued rivers could be party
to litigation, was the lone dissenter on over half of his 300 dissenting opinions,
wrote the most speeches and books as a justice, and had the most marriages
(four) and divorces (three – his last marriage, to a 23-year-old law student, lasted
till his death) on the bench. As part of his commitment to making the C&O a park,
he hiked the full length of the path with 58 companions (only nine made it to the
end). Public opinion was swayed, and the C&O was saved.WASHINGTON.DC,.MARYLAND.&.DELAWARE.TRIPS.16
(^) ALONG THE C&O CANAL