Each year, hundreds of thousands of people heading to vacation cross over the Cape Cod
Canal using one of three bridges.
For decades, these steel structures have been a staple of daily life for both Cape Codders
and visitors alike.
But they are not the original bridges.
And in fact, the canal that people cross today is much different from the one that first
opened back in 1914.
Producer Dave Fraser takes us on a journey to explore the history of the Cape Cod Canal.
For many of us who travel to the Cape, we feel as though we have not made it until we've
crossed the bridge.
The Sagamore, Bourne, and Railroad bridges have become the unofficial gateway to Cape
Cod.
But did you ever wonder about the canal that those bridges traverse?
Today, it is an important waterway for navigators and a recreational resource for many, but
the idea for the canal dates back to the 1620s.
There were two rivers here before, the Scusset and the Manomet, that both went inland, but
kind of in different directions.
And it had been a place where the Wampanoag would carry their canoes across from one river
to the other, when they were crossing from the Cape Cod Bay to Buzzards Bay.
Sixteen twenty three, you had Miles Standish saying we should put a canal through here.
Meanwhile, the treacherous outer shores of Cape Cod stranded many ships, claiming nearly
a wreck a week, according to historians during the height of the commercial shipping era,
giving the outer cape the ominous nickname of the "Graveyard of the Atlantic."
This was basically an avenue of commerce.
Ships had to go around here between Boston and New York.
It was estimated that between 1626 and the mid-20th century, there were between three
thousand and four thousand shipwrecks along Cape Cod's outer beach.
Attempts to build a canal had been unsuccessful until, in 1904, a wealthy financier named
August Belmont moved ahead with a plan to connect the Monomet and Scusset Rivers.
Along with civil engineer William Barclay Parsons, Belmont was confident they could
succeed where others had failed.
In June of 1909, construction started on the canal.
Dredges of various sizes dug from each bay toward the middle.
Bad weather, clay, and large boulders slowed the progress.
A narrow gauge railroad was installed to move dirt and equipment back and forth.
They finally come to this center point that they've set up Foley's Dike, and that's the
place where they have the ceremony of the joining of the waters.
And they cut through, and suddenly Cape Cod Bay and Buzzards Bay are connected.
Two drawbridges and a railroad bridge were installed, along with a passenger ferry to
allow people to cross the canal.
Belmont's canal, however, never achieved the level of traffic or revenue its investors
had envisioned, and in the end it was deemed a financial failure.
He did it entirely with his own funding and funding that he was able to get together,
with the idea that he would be able to pay it off and make a profit from the tolls.
Well, that never really happened for a number of reasons, and I think that probably Belmont
ended up losing money on the canal.
Seeing value in this waterway, the U.S. government purchased the canal in 1928 and began construction
to widen and deepen it, as well as build three new bridges.
Now, all three bridges that were constructed along the Cape Cod Canal were financed underneath
the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933.
That's your New Deal program.
About $4.6 Million dollars was allocated to the canal, and it put many local people to
work during that construction.
Both bridges, the Sagamore and Bourne, are the same height as the Brooklyn Bridge in
New York.
Thousands of cars and trucks cross over them daily, more so in the summertime.
The Railroad bridge was the longest of its kind when it was built.
Aided by counterweights, it takes two and a half minutes for the center span to lower
for approaching trains.
Today, the Cape Cod Canal is not only a navigable waterway, snaking its way between Cape Cod
Bay and Buzzards Bay, it is a recreational resource for fishing, biking, and sightseeing.
We see roughly about 15,000 vessels that go through the Cape Cod Canal every year.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers operates a marine traffic control center that allow
us to communicate with and track all vessels.
There's a little bit more than 11,000 acres of federal lands that surround the canal.
And we’re visited by about 3 million people annually.
It’s a really important engineering marvel.
It’s still the widest sea-level canal in the world.
And, you know, it make Cape Cod an island.
It wasn’t a peninsula anymore.