banks, and even tried a lottery all to no avail. End of canal operations The Erie Canal opened in 1825, and immediately became a rival, controlling a connection between the Great Lakes and the Eastern Seaboard. The Patowmack Company folded in 1828, turning over its assets and liabilities to the newly formed C&O Canal Company. The new company abandoned the Patowmack Canal (except for the section at Little Falls) in 1830 for an even more ambitious undertaking: a man-made waterway stretching from Georgetown to Pittsburgh. Although the Patowmack Company was a financial failure, its builders pioneered lock engineering and stimulated a wave of canal construction important to the country's development. Groundbreaking for the C&O Canal took place close to Lock 6, near the upstream side of the Little Falls Skirting Canal. In the end, the Little Falls skirting canal was modified and repurposed for the C&O Canal prism as well as becoming its feeder canal (Inlet #1), after some modifications. From Lock 5 to almost Fletcher's Boat House is the bed of the Little Falls Skirting Canal. The Shenandoah canal (i.e. canal on the Shenandoah River) was still used occasionally, and was the reason why the C&O canal had to build the Shenandoah river lock (just below Lock 33) at Harper's Ferry, to get cooperation from the Virginia state legislature. Boats were to leave the C&O Canal, with the mules crossing over the B&O railroad bridge, bringing them to the Shenandoah, letting them go through the canal there. George Washington did not live to see the completion of the navigation project that had been his obsession since youth. But he did take pride in visiting the canal during the construction to inspect its progress. He died in 1799, two years before the canal opened at Great Falls. But in the long run Washington's vision of a strong nation linked by a direct, long-distance trade network came true. His frequent toast, "Success to the navigation of the Potomac!" became a footnote of American history. Current recreational use In 1930 the U.S. Congress authorized the canals as a park. The National Park Service took on responsibility for its management in 1966. The preservation of the Patowmack Canal is part of the Park Service's continuing efforts to protect and preserve special resources of the park. The Patowmack Canal and Matildaville ruins are protected by the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979. This law