A few years ago we featured a travel story in a travel story in Preservation magazine about the C & O Canal magazine about the C & O Canal and the restored lockhouses that can be reserved for overnight stays while hiking or biking along the canal tow path. So when I was invited to the unlocking of a related lockkeeper’s house that hasn’t been open to the public in more than 40 years, I jumped at the chance -- despite torrential rains.

Once inside the Lockkeeper’s House it became clear just what that million bucks would be going toward. Though the building seems to be structurally sound, the floor plan had been cut up to accommodate public restrooms that functioned until the early 1970s, and only perimeter walls of the building remain anything close to what might have been original. (Check out my photos below of the Lockkeeper’s House, and you’ll see what I mean.)

After spending a half hour or so learning about and photographing the building, I shared a cab with the American Express Foundation’s President, Timothy J. McClimon, which gave me the opportunity to ask him what about this particular building inspired the grant. He said that he had long been considering how to contribute to historic preservation at the National Mall, but the foundation doesn’t make grants for unidentified maintenance and restoration work. He wanted to find a specific preservation project with long-term impact that the foundation could support.

“When the Trust for the National Mall suggested the Lockkeeper’s House,” says McClimon, “I knew we had our project. It is the oldest building on the Mall, it’s prominently located in one of the most visited areas of the Mall, and it’s a great touchstone to the city’s early history.”

Official partner of the National Park Service, the Trust for the National Mall is dedicated to National Mall restoration and visitor experience projects, creating opportunities for millions of annual visitors to connect with the area’s rich history. On hand for the announcement and tour of the disused Lockkeeper’s House, Trust for the National Mall President Caroline Cunningham offered a brief history of the building as well as plans for restoration.

As detailed in the Preservation magazine story, lockkeepers’ houses were built as homes and workplaces for keepers and their families. This house, however, is unusual among the other surviving lockkeeper’s houses as it was constructed for a lockkeeper of the C & O Extension, a commercial corridor between the C & O and the Washington City canals.

When railways largely replaced canals for commercial shipping after the Civil War, the lockkeepers’ houses were no longer needed. And then around the turn of last century, this house in particular became even more isolated from the Potomac River and the C & O during the establishment of Potomac Park, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Reflecting Pool.