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This is my second post about Augusta, Georgia, which I visited in June on a lark. No need to read my earlier post first, but feel free.

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When I think about how people lived in earlier times, I tend to judge them as primitive and unsophisticated. Not stupid, mind you, but simple and unrefined. Clueless compared to us cutting-edge modern folks.

And up to a point, they were. For example, to prevent disease, you have to understand the concept of pathogens. Good luck with that if you lived before people knew what pathogens are.

But sometimes, I run across evidence that people from days of yore were quite competent and shouldn’t be sold short. A case in point: the impressive feat, way back in the 1840s, of building the Augusta Canal.

A bit of background. In 1733, General James Oglethorpe founded Savannah, the first settlement in the new colony of Georgia. In 1736, Oglethorpe sent a contingent of troops up the Savannah River to build an outpost at the limit of upstream navigation.

The purpose was to establish a settlement where goods could be brought from towns to the north and west and shipped downriver to Savannah for export.

The limit of upstream navigation turned out to be 200 miles north of Savannah at the fall line, where the Piedmont Plateau drops down to the Coastal Plain. For centuries, native people used the ledges and shoals at the fall line to cross the Savannah River.

(Later, the cities of  Macon, Columbus, and Milledgeville also were established at the fall line. Below them, the rivers are deep and smooth to the Atlantic or the Gulf. Above them is rocky, shallow water and a steady climb to the Appalachians.)

Oglethorpe’s expedition built an outpost on the west bank of the Savannah River about seven miles south of the fall line. The settlement was named in honor of Princess Augusta, the wife of the Prince of Wales.

And Oglethorpe’s plan worked splendidly. For the next hundred years, Augusta thrived as a trading and shipping center. Wagons rolled into town from across the region carrying tobacco, cotton, and other goods. The warehouses brimmed with product. Barges and steamboats transported a steady stream of cargo downriver to Savannah, where it was shipped to other markets.

But by the early 1800s, Augusta’s prosperity was waning. Various economic factors were taking their toll — the country’s westward expansion, the growth of the railroads, competition from other river towns.

Then in the 1840s, a man with a vision came forward. Henry H. Cumming, son of the city’s first mayor, proposed a plan to turn Augusta into a manufacturing center by building a canal from the fall line to Augusta.

Henry H. Cumming

Because the canal would drop 52 feet in elevation by the time it reached Augusta, it could provide hydropower to operate mills and factories. Plus, it would be a transportation corridor and a source of drinking water.

Cumming hired a prestigious engineer to survey the route and draw up the plans, and the city fathers gave it their blessing. Construction on the Augusta Canal began in the spring of 1845.

The workers — hundreds of slaves, freedmen, and white laborers — dug the entire canal by hand.

This, mind you, was an era when the only tools available were pickaxes, shovels, and horse-drawn carts. There was no electric power, no heavy equipment. Steam power was in development, but it was not practical for a field project.

The canal was designed and built in three sections. Where each section ended, some of the water was allowed to flow downhill and back into the Savannah River. At those drops, the new factories would be built.

Despite constant engineering complications and a several legal battles over the route, the canal was completed and opened in July 1850.

Painting of the headgates of the Augusta Canal at the fall line, 1850s.

But the project was only a limited success. The canal performed as expected, but it wasn’t large enough to power all the proposed factories and mills. The engineers had miscalculated.

Thus, after the understandable delay of the Civil War, a project to enlarge the canal got underway in 1872.

Again, battalions of workers were assembled. Some were local laborers, some were convicts from area prisons. Italian stonemasons and Chinese railroad workers were brought in. Steam-powered equipment was used in addition to picks and shovels.

Expanding the Augusta Canal. Painting by Bernard Willingham, 1870s.

By 1875, the new and improved Augusta Canal was in operation. This time, the channel was 13 feet deep and 150 feet across.

Between the canal and the Savannah River, a towpath was built atop the levy so horses and oxen could pull the barges. The towpath ran from the canal headgates to downtown Augusta.

As envisioned, new factories soon arose along the canal banks. “Mill towns” materialized to house the factory workers and their families. The textile industry and other enterprises flourished in Augusta well into the 20th Century.

Sibley Cotton Mill on the Augusta Canal, 1903.

A flat-bottomed “Petersburg” boat on the canal in the 1890s.

As the decades passed, the canal generated electricity not only for the factories, but also for streetcars, streetlights, homes, and businesses.

But by the 1960s, inevitably, Augusta’s prosperity began to wane again. The canal was becoming antiquated. Truck transportation took business away. Electricity was cheaper from the new power plants on the Savannah River.

Meanwhile, the city began neglecting the canal and even considered draining parts of it. When Augusta demolished several abandoned factories during urban renewal projects, parts of the in-town portion of the canal were allowed to dry up.

In 1971, another Cumming stepped forward and woke up the city fathers in grand style. It was Joseph Cumming, great-grandson of Henry, who managed to get the Augusta Canal added to the National Register of Historic Places.

This action forced the city administration to change its viewpoint about the canal. “Save the Augusta Canal” bumper stickers became popular. Local citizens organized to stop the construction of a golf course near the canal headgates.

By the 1990s, Augusta also realized that the canal had superb recreational possibilities. Soon, a canal authority was chartered. The canal was cleaned up, and the flow of water was restored throughout its length.

In 1996, the canal was designated a National Heritage Area. One of the old factories was converted into a canal museum and visitor center.

Today, You can rent a canoe or kayak at the headgates, float as far downstream as you like, and take a shuttle back.

You can walk, run, or cycle for miles on the towpath or other trails in the vicinity.

The city now offers cruises along the canal aboard replicas of the old Petersburg flatboats. Appropriately, one of those flatboats is the Henry H. Cumming.

Sibley Mill (left) and J. P. King Mill today. Both are vacant, but are owned and protected by the Canal Authority.

One leg of the canal passes through this in-town courtyard as the water flows back to the Savannah River.

A view of the canal from the towpath.

The Augusta Canal is now 166 years old — and doing pretty well for its age.