Aqueduct Bridge Ruins

The chunky western pier of the Aqueduct Bridge has watched over the Georgetown waterfront for two centuries and reflects forces shaping the area’s historical development from a thriving industrial port into a trendy commercial destination. Originally built to carry C&O Canal barge traffic from Georgetown into Virginia, the ruins of this hulking bit of transportation infrastructure is now a graffitied hangout for picnics and unauthorized happy hours.

Long before automobile traffic clogged the nearby M Street, flotillas of 19th-century canal boats backed up in the bottleneck approaching Georgetown where many waited to unload their cargoes into waterfront factories. An  Aqueduct Bridge, located just above the city, was envisioned to offer a convenient bypass for boats headed on down the Potomac to Alexandria, Virginia.

The daunting mid-river construction project was accomplished in the 1830’s with a set of leaky cofferdams that allowed workers to climb down 35 feet below the water and silt. Wobbling barges lowered massive stones down the holes to build up the piers, and a wooden trough built on top -when flooded- provided canal traffic with a watery overpass.

During the Civil War the Aqueduct Bridge marched in lockstep with Washington as the city retooled itself in the pursuit of total war. Soldiers drained the water and boarded up the duct for a military roadway linking the city with forts and batteries guarding Arlington heights. This was followed by another rebirth in the late 1880’s as the Industrial Revolution kicked into high gear the Potomac aqueduct was rebuilt with an elegant iron truss superstructure that reflected some of the best steampunk architectural influences.

By the 1923 the Aqueduct had been abandoned in place, replaced by the adjacent monumental Francis Scott Key Bridge that catered to increasingly popular automobiles. In 1933 the Civil Works Administration dismantled the Aqueduct’s iron truss span but left the piers in place to shield Key Bridge from dangerous ice flows. The stone abutment in Georgetown was preserved due to the efforts of The Georgetown Citizens Association, who successfully mounted a campaign to save it as a recreation spot.

The mid-river piers stood there into the 1960’s, when boating enthusiasts pressured Virginia Congressman Joel Broyhill to get rid of them, as a boat racing hazard. According to the Washington Post, Broyhill asked the Army Corps of Engineers to blow the piers up as part of “a training exercise.” The rubble could then be repurposed in Anacostia Park to build a seawall. The Arlington Historical Society got them to leave one pier in place as a historical marker, and it’s still there today.

Far from the only Industrial Revolution era ruins along the C&O canal, the Aqueduct Bridge is joined by the lone surviving foundation block from the once-famous Canal Incline Plane, and the ruins of the Columbian Cannon Foundry.