Chesapeake City

So, one more night in Chesapeake City and we are off to the Bay tomorrow.

Chesapeake City has quite an interesting history.  When the canal between Delaware and Chesapeake Bays was open in the early 1800s, it cut 300 miles off of a trip from Philadelphia to Baltimore and became an instant success.

The original canal had locks to raise the boats over the Delmarva peninsula and lower them back down at the other end.  Delaware City on the east and Chesapeake City on  the west both became important hubs offering support for canal and its traffic.  Starting with the opening of the canal in 1829, the cities on either end prospered.

For Chesapeake City, reversals of fortune were in the future.  First, in the 1920s the Federal government took over the canal and began a project both enlarge the canal and eliminate the need for locks by digging deeper.  When the new canal opened in 1927, the locks were eliminated and canal traffic no longer had to stop at Chesapeake City,

Although the boats no longer stopped, there still was a surface level draw bridge in town for land traffic to cross the canal.  Even without the boats, the land traffic at the bridge continued to nourish the town.

In 1942, a ship hit and destroyed the surface level draw bridge.  When a new bridge was built, it was constructed as a very high fixed bridge that the large freighters could go under.  The approaches of the bridge towered over the town and all the land traffic now would bypass the City too.

The City continued to decline until several residents and business people banded together with a vision to restore the town.  The results are amazing.  Other than the modern cars and the fact that the people smell ok, it feels just like you are stepping into a town of the 1850s.  (although I doubt that they had so many antique and gift shops 150 years ago)

Today they have a few nice restaurants, lots of shops, an interesting canal museum, many, many wonderfully restored buildings, and a great harbor for pleasure boats.