You have plenty of time to reflect on 19th-century transportation when the scenery is passing by at a leisurely 3 miles per hour.
People can use their imagination and really feel like they are in the canal era.
The canals were eventually replaced as major transportation arteries by railroads and then by highways. The Lehigh Canal, one of the last towpath canals in operation in the United States, lasted until the 1930s, but most of the others had stopped carrying freight and passengers long before. While the canal made it only as far as Cumberland, Md., it remained an important commercial artery for nearly 100 years. The canal sat idle for 15 years before the federal government purchased it in 1938, and the Civilian Conservation Corps restored and rewatered the first 22 miles from Washington. We have two boats on the canal at different parts of the park.