Cape Cod Canal: 1922, Cape Cod Canal as Private Toll Canal

Details:
black and white printed map
dimensions: 22 3/4 x 35 inches
condition: professionally conserved, evidence of prior foldChart seller's purple ink stamp on front, "Chas.C. Hutchinson, 154 State Street, Boston, Mass."

Description: This highly utilitarian map of the Cape Cod Canal provides general information about the structures built across the canal as of 1922 for different modes of transit: for trains from New York, Boston and Fall River a railroad bridge, and for the cultivated and growing number of drivers, multiple highway bridges. Cape Cod Canal was constructed beginning in 1909, it opened for smaller vessels in 1914 and was officially complete in 1916. The canal was privately owned and charged a toll. In 1922, the publication date of this map, the Cape Cod Canal and its bridges had only been in use for six years and this map was an educational document for those not accustomed to the new road, rail and sailing patterns to and from Cape Cod.The General Information chart in the top right corner of the map provides navigation instructions to mariners for the Cape Cod Canal, and includes distances between Boston and New York via Vineyard Sound with instructions for those arriving on boats.

In the lower right corner is an inset map of the southeastern coast below Cape Cod, extending into Narragansett Bay. The islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket are shown. Railroad routes from Boston, Fall River and Providence serve the Cape and certainly remind current travelers to the Cape of the transportation tragedy of discontinuing rail service. In fact, this map shows the preference already being accorded vehicles by the multiple vehicle bridges. Construction resumed in 1935 for five years to widen Cape Cod Canal. By this time the Canal was owned by the U.S. Federal Government rather than a private canal company. At this new scale, the Cape Cod Canal was one of the largest canals in the world.