History
In 1954, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas and a group of conservation-minded fellow hikers walked the C&O Canal from Cumberland, Md., to Washington, D.C. Their aim was to head off a plan to build a highway atop the canal right-of-way. They advocated that a C&O Canal national park be created instead. Two years following the hike, Douglas proposed, and the hiking group unanimously approved, the formation of the C&O Canal Association to promote the national park proposal. The Association organized popular "Reunion" hikes on the canal to publicize the park idea; at the same time, it urged Congress to pass legislation establishing a C&O Canal National Historical Park. These efforts finally yielded fruit in 1971 when Congress enacted the legislation creating the park.
Read more about this topic: Chesapeake And Ohio Canal Association
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It’s not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)