Year Erected: 1954

Marker Text:  The Augusta Canal, begun in 1845 and completed in 1847, provided power for one of the first cotton textile manufacturing plants in the South and was the beginning of the development of Augusta as a great textile manufacturing center.

The canal was built by Col. Henry R. Cumming, who hired engineers to make surveys for the waterway. Water was let into the first level of the canal in 1846. It was enlarged and lengthened by Charles Estes in 1875.