![]() ![]() Workers used black powder to blast through rock, used picks and shovels, and hauled out rubble by horse carts. Lee Montgomery, a Methodist pastor turned contractor, hired a crew and began work on the tunnel in June 1836. Two other men responsible for building of the tunnel were Fisk's assistant, Elwood Morris and the contractor, Lee Montgomery. Fourteen years later when the 3,118-foot tunnel opened, it cost more than $600,000. Labor violence, funding shortfalls, and work stoppages slowed construction. When work started in June 1836 on the Paw Paw Tunnel engineers estimated the work would take just two years and $33,500 to complete. Even when work was well advanced the board of directors seriously contemplated abandonment of the partially completed tunnel in favor of a dam. and, due largely to enthusiastic advocacy of newly appointed engineer, Charles B. The alternatives were thoroughly debated within the canal Co. To have followed river would have required either crossing to West Virginia shore and back hacking out canal along those cliffs or damming river at lower end of bend to form a slack-water and cutting a towpath along cliffs or putting towpath on West Virginia side. While tunnel route involved cutting thru 3118' of solid rock, the Maryland shore of river route contains some impressive cliffs coming right down to the river. Here the river makes a series of gargantuan loops the tunnel route cutting across one large double loop takes 1 m where river takes six. The Paw Paw Tunnel is one of the major features of the canal, built as a bypass to some very difficult terrain along the Potomac River in Paw Paw Bends. ![]()
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