The Cape Cod Canal

Mariners dreaded the water around the cape. In its issue of October 25, 1913, the Marine Journal called this stretch the most dangerous coast in winter to be found on the map of the United States. A shorter, safer route was the answer to the dangers of sailing around the cape and over the shoals. Fifty years of American inland canal building came and passed by 1840. Ferdinand de Lesseps completed his 100-mile ditch at Suez in 1869. Finally in 1899 the last charter to build a Cape Cod canal was granted, although it was ten years before construction began. Five years after ground was broken the first ships sailed through the waterway, just a few weeks before the Panama Canal linked the oceans. with 161 illustrations.