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North River Canal System, Indian Gap Run Aqueduct, West side of Buena Vista, Buena Vista, Roanoke City, Virginia

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North River Canal System, Indian Gap Run Aqueduct, West side of Buena Vista, Buena Vista, Roanoke City, Virginia

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Summary

Significance: The North River Navigation represents a rare example of stone lock construction in Virginia, exhibiting remarkable similarities to earlier structures of the Potomac Canal at Great Falls, Virginia. It was, moreover, an unusually late example of canal building, erected in an era when these systems were being rapidly superseded by railroads. Part of a state-sponsored project to connect the James and Ohio Rivers, the canal extended navigation northward from the James River to Lexington, Virginia, transforming the area's economy. Furthermore, the presence of the canal seems to have been an important factor in determining the trajectory of the railroad which, in the 1880s, superseded it, incorporating the old path towpath and aqueduct abutments in its construction. It was over the North River Navigation that General Stonewall Jackson's body was conveyed after his death in May of 1863 from wounds received at the Battle of Chancellorsville. One of the best preserved canal systems in the state, these features reveal much about lock and aqueduct construction seen only in fragments elsewhere. Additionally, the technology used here is much the same as that found more than a half century earlier and attests to the soundness of design adopted by early canal engineers in Virginia.
Survey number: HAER VA-61-A

date_range

Date

1969 - 1980
person

Contributors

Historic American Engineering Record, creator
place

Location

buena vista37.26764, -79.92504
Google Map of 37.2676374, -79.9250375
create

Source

Library of Congress
copyright

Copyright info

No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html

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