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Lums Pond State Park

1963 establishments in DelawareBodies of water in New Castle County, DelawareChesapeake & Delaware CanalParks in New Castle County, DelawarePonds of Delaware
Protected areas established in 1963State parks of DelawareUse mdy dates from August 2023
Lums Pond State Park table
Lums Pond State Park table

Lums Pond State Park is a 1,790-acre (720 ha) Delaware state park near Bear, New Castle County, Delaware in the United States. The park surrounds Lums Pond, an impoundment built by the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal on St. Georges Creek. The C&D built the pond as a source of water to fill the locks of the canal that connected the Chesapeake Bay with the Delaware River during the early 19th century. Lums Pond State Park is open for a wide variety of year-round recreation.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Lums Pond State Park (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Lums Pond State Park
Swamp Forest Trail,

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Wikipedia: Lums Pond State ParkContinue reading on Wikipedia

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N 39.558333333333 ° E -75.720833333333 °
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Swamp Forest Trail

Swamp Forest Trail

Delaware, United States
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Lums Pond State Park table
Lums Pond State Park table
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Chesapeake & Delaware Canal
Chesapeake & Delaware Canal

The Chesapeake & Delaware Canal (C&D Canal) is a 14-mile (22.5 km)-long, 450-foot (137.2 m)-wide and 35-foot (10.7 m)-deep ship canal that connects the Delaware River with the Chesapeake Bay in the states of Delaware and Maryland in the United States. In the mid‑17th century, mapmaker Augustine Herman observed that these great bodies of water were separated only by a narrow strip of land. In 1764, a survey of possible water routes across the Delmarva Peninsula was made, but little action followed. The idea was raised again in 1788 by regional business leaders, including noted Philadelphians Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush. Despite the beginnings of a commercial venture in 1802—coincident with Canal Mania in England and Wales—it wasn't until 1829 before the C&D Canal Company could, at last, announce the waterway "open for business". Its construction cost of $3.5 million (equivalent to $89.1 million in 2022) made it one of the most expensive canal projects of its time. In the present era, the C&D Canal is owned and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Philadelphia District. The project office in Chesapeake City, Maryland, is also the site of the C&D Canal Museum and Bethel Bridge Lighthouse. The canal saves approximately 300 miles on the route between Wilmington or Philadelphia on the Delaware River and Baltimore on Chesapeake Bay, avoiding a course around the Delmarva Peninsula. The canal is itself a significant landmark and cultural boundary for the state of Delaware, considered a divide between the urbanized northern portion of the state and the rural southern portion known locally as "Lower Delaware", and demarcates an unofficial northern limit to the Delmarva Peninsula.

Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Lift Bridge
Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Lift Bridge

The Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Lift Bridge is a railroad bridge with vertical-lift span in the U.S. state of Delaware. It carries a Delmarva Central Railroad rail line across the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal.This bridge was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as part of a canal expansion project and opened in 1966. The Canal Lift Bridge, the only drawbridge on the C & D Canal (other lift bridges, carrying vehicular traffic, had since been replaced with high-level crossings) was owned and operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad, Penn Central, and Conrail before Norfolk Southern acquired ownership of it in 1998 and the Delmarva Central Railroad took over in 2016. The bridge is used primarily by Delmarva Central Railroad on its Delmarva Subdivision, which has a junction with Norfolk Southern north of the bridge in Porter. Norfolk Southern trains use the bridge via trackage rights to interchange with the Delmarva Central Railroad in Clayton. It has also been used by Amtrak for special events held throughout the year including NASCAR races at Dover International Speedway and the Delaware State Fair, with the trains departing from 30th Street Station in Philadelphia and using Amtrak's Northeast Corridor to the Bell Junction near Edgemoor, then departing a short distance later on the Shellpot Branch and later the Delmarva Branch. The bridge carries a single track across the canal and is kept open to allow the free flow of shipping traffic underneath. If a freight train plans on crossing the canal in either direction, the engineer must contact the bridge operator at least 30 minutes before crossing, as to allow the bridge to be lowered. Most canal crossings occur at night when most of the shipping traffic (along with Amtrak and SEPTA train traffic farther north) is at a minimum. The northern approach to the Canal Lift Bridge bisects an abandoned section of the C & D Canal, which was bypassed in the 1960s with the current sea-level channel. On March 18, 2020, it was announced that the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Lift Bridge would be refurbished as part of an $18.8 million federal grant to the Delmarva Central Railroad.