Cape Cod Canal - Digging The Canal

Digging The Canal

On June 22, 1909, construction finally began for a working canal under the direction of August Belmont, Jr's Boston, Cape Cod & New York Canal Company, using designs by engineer William Barclay Parsons. There were many problems that the engineers of the canal encountered. One was mammoth boulders left by the retreat of Ice Age glaciers. Divers were hired to blow them up, but the effort slowed dredging. Another problem was cold winter storms, which forced the engineers to stop dredging altogether and wait for spring. Nevertheless, the canal opened, on a limited basis, on July 29 1914, and it was completed in 1916. The privately-owned toll canal had a maximum width of one hundred feet (30 m), a maximum depth of 25 feet (7.62 m), and took a somewhat difficult route from Phinney Harbor at the head of Buzzards Bay. Due to the narrow channel and navigation difficulty, several accidents occurred which limited traffic and blackened the canal's reputation. As a result, despite shortening the trade route from New York City to Boston by 62 miles (100 km), toll revenues failed to meet investors' expectations.

A Kaiserliche Marine German U-boat, the U-156, surfaced three miles off Orleans, on July 21, 1918 and shelled the tug Perth Amboy and her string of four barges. The Director General of the United States Railroad Administration took over jurisdiction and operation of the canal four days later under a presidential proclamation. The United States Army Corps of Engineers re-dredged the channel to 25 feet (7.62 m) deep while it remained under government control until 1920. In 1928, the government purchased the canal for use as a free public waterway. The purchase price was $11,400,000, and $21,000,000 was spent between 1935 to 1940 increasing the canal's width to 480 feet (146.35 m), and its depth to 32 feet (9.76 m). As a result, the canal became the widest sea level canal of its time. The southern entrance to the canal was rebuilt for direct access from Buzzards Bay rather than through Phinney Harbor. Before construction began, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology built a huge scale model (9 feet to a mile) of the canal to study the effects of tidal currents on the enlarged and re-routed canal.

During World War II, shipping again used the canal to avoid Kriegsmarine U-boats patrolling offshore. The canal was protected by the emplacement of a coastal artillery battery at Sagamore Hill Military Reservation. The artillery was never fired in defense of the canal.

The Mystic Steamship Company's collier Stephen R. Jones was grounded and sank in the canal on June 28, 1942. Shipping was routed around Cape Cod, and the SS Alexander Macomb was torpedoed on July 3 with the loss of 10 lives. The canal reopened on July 31, after the wrecked Stephen R. Jones was removed with the help of 17 tons of dynamite.