WI: Washington's Canals Succeed?

My interest was piqued by this article, which mentions that Washington attempted to open the West through canals from the Potomac, but that the Erie Canal got there first. What would have happened had they succeeded, and D.C. becoming a major stop on the routes to and from the West?
 
Washington DC as a city would have more respect versus OTL's reputation for it as a government-bureaucraticopolis inside the Beltway.
 
DC would see a temporary boom followed by a bust once the Erie Canal is completed. DC, being built in a swamp, was not suited for immediate growth. Also the relatively narrow Potomac is a far inferior port compared to NY or even Philly. And there is always the problem of slavery. Immigrants preferred to enter the US by way of free ports because the jobs were in the North. It took time to build up enough wealth to gather supplies and purchase land. The opportunities to do so were far fewer in the slave states.

Perhaps due to the increase in immigrants, there is far more pressure to ban slavery in DC. This of course will open a whole different bag of worms.

Benjamin
 
Railorads

I'd have to say that for the canals Washington envisioned succeed, one would have to delay the development of the railroad, especially the Baltimore-Ohio Railroad. The Chesapeake/Ohio Canal was profitable for just a few years. The floods and the development of the railroad (once they could build one that could across mountains) rendered it too slow and limited.
 
I don't think it was possible for canals based out of Washington to compete with the Erie Canal. Terrain was just to much of a problem in the Mid-Atlantic region. The C&O canal never even made it to the worst of the mountains before becoming an impossibility for the engineering of the times. Also as you get higher into the mountains finding a reliable source of water to fill the canal becomes a problem. The Erie had the advantage of having the Great Lakes at the higher elevation provided water for the entire canal.

I think a better possibility would have been if railroads would have come along 10-20 years earlier and allowed a transportation system that would have been free of the need of 'navigable' water. Then Baltimore, Arlington, or Richmond may have been willing to move to the new form of transportation to gain an advantage. I don't think Washington would have been a serious contender since it was not a commercial center. However the city of Georgetown, DC may have been. Yes at the time Georgetown and Washington were separate entities within the District of Columbia.
 
I don't think it was possible for canals based out of Washington to compete with the Erie Canal. Terrain was just to much of a problem in the Mid-Atlantic region. The C&O canal never even made it to the worst of the mountains before becoming an impossibility for the engineering of the times. Also as you get higher into the mountains finding a reliable source of water to fill the canal becomes a problem. The Erie had the advantage of having the Great Lakes at the higher elevation provided water for the entire canal.
More to the point, the Erie is incredibly level. Certainly you need a bunch of locks, but they're spread over hundreds of miles. You also have LOTS of lakes and rivers in the area (Finger Lakes, etc.) for water supply.

I think a better possibility would have been if railroads would have come along 10-20 years earlier and allowed a transportation system that would have been free of the need of 'navigable' water. Then Baltimore, Arlington, or Richmond may have been willing to move to the new form of transportation to gain an advantage. I don't think Washington would have been a serious contender since it was not a commercial center. However the city of Georgetown, DC may have been. Yes at the time Georgetown and Washington were separate entities within the District of Columbia.
Ah. No. Basically barge canals become uneconomical once RRs appear. Ship canals (St. Lawrence/Panama/Suez) are a different story, but the wild pace of canal building pretty much stopped dead once RRs got off the ground.
 
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