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Cape Cod Canal Vision

Miles Standish saw the Cape Cod Canal in his mind’s eye. He was the first person, so rumor has it, to propose that a canal should or could some day be dug from one side of the Cape to the other.

Having spent some years with the other pilgrims in Holland, land of canals, what would be more natural than that he should think of the possibility of a handy canal on Cape Cod?

But it is one thing to think of a canal, and another thing to dig it. Even George Washington, a hundred years later, did some thinking of the possible canal, but no digging; he declared that a canal through the Cape would be a good idea.

Still, not until 1909 did anyone get busy about the Canal. Then the well-known financier, August Belmont, came along with his shiny silver shovel, dug up the first shovelful of the Canal, and was followed in that action by a host of laborers with plain wood and iron shovels, plenty of muscle and payroll incentive. The Canal was dug.

In 1918, as a war measure, Uncle Sam took it over and to this day operates it.

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