Of land with locations in every state. More than 325 Million People visited these sites last year. Over the next 90 minutes, well feature a mixture of Natural Beauty and history at eight different parks around the country. We begin outside of cleveland. Well learn how the canal plays a major role in western expansion. The ohio canal is part of a twocanal system that was put in place in the early years of america, built between 1825 and 1832. And basically its a water transportation route that connected lake erie with the ohio river which is part of a large idea, a National Water transportation route. In the early days of america, we had 13 colonies all situated along the atlantic seaboard. And our leaders at that time saw a problem. That problem was we needed that country to expand westward. However, there was a big obstacle. The appalachian mountains. Our first president , george washington, happened to be a canal engineer, had an idea. That idea was to create a transcontinental water
Next, we travel about 15 miles northwest of washington, d. C. To Great Falls Tavern Visitors Center where well take a boat ride to learn about the history of the chesapeake and ohio canal. I would like to introduce myself. My name is cassandra and i am a seasonal park ranger here at the chesapeake and ohio canal. I think were going to cast off here shortly, but well go ahead and start to give you a brief history of here on the canal. So it is called the chesapeake and ohio canal, but definitely doesnt reach the Chesapeake Bay or doesnt go all the way up to the ohio river, which is your intention of the canal when we first started building it july 4th of 1828. We wanted to try to connect the Eastern Shore with what was considered the west back then. The west was up in ohio, pennsylvania, that area. We wanted to connect pittsburgh to the Chesapeake Bay, and so what we did was we started building this canal. We tried earlier, it was George Washingtons dream to actually use the Potomac Riv
Hampden, virginia. Up next, robin reed gives us a tour showcasing the forts history from a colonial era through its completion in 1834 and its role in the civil war. Welcome to fort monroe located on the Pleasant Place we call Point Comfort. Actually, oh, Point Comfort and that way for a long, long time. Here over 400 years of history occurred. In fact, some say even longer. Some say even thousands of years. Inside the museum aptly named, Casemate Museum. A vault made is inside a for the wall. Youre inside the fourt wall. Unique for museums this date in time. Well talk about the history that occurs here. Some of our stories deal with the virginia indians, the africans that first arrived here, and their plight during the American Civil War. Thousands and thousands of years ago, the natives of this land started to migrate. They migrated as far as, far west as mexico and the Mississippi River valley. They migrated as far south as south america, and central america. They migrated all the w
James adovasio, who has been leading Archeology Research there for almost 50 years. We are currently 46 kilometers southwest of pittsburgh, pennsylvania, in washington county, on the north bank of cross creek, which is a small tributary of the ohio river. In 1972 there was a vacancy in the Anthropology Department at the university of pittsburgh. I joined the faculty there. One of the parameters of which job was to set up an archeological Training Program that would train not only graduate and undergraduate students in anthropology and archaeology in the protocols of modern excavation, but also to train people in ancillary fields, geologists, climatologists, flora and fauna specialists and so forth. Because i didnt have the opportunity to search for a location for the Field Operation due to research commitments in the eastern mediterranean, i circulated word amongst my colleagues, who directed me to see this particular site, which had actually been discovered in 1955 by the land owner,
I think that we are going to cast off here shortly, but were going to go ahead and start. A brief history on the canal. It definitely doesnt go all the way up to the ohio river. We wanted to connect the Eastern Shore which with what was considered the west, ohio, pennsylvania, that area. We wanted to connected to the bay, so we did was we stern building the canal. We started earlier with a George Washington dream to use the river, back then it was seen as a reasonable thing to do so we went ahead and had a canal system built on that side by using left to get around the great falls and river. Although it wasnt very reliable usage. It didnt have long time use. It was kind of broken. That were very well. We went to head and took his, dream built a canal right next to the river so we could use that water source but have something that is more controlled and reliable, compared to the potomac river, because you took a boat over the falls, he probably wouldnt last very long. So we took this c