After the American Civil War funds for resuming construction were unavailable from either the war-torn Commonwealth or private sources and the project did poorly against railroad competition, finally succumbing to damage done by massive flooding in 1877.

Early developments along the east coast of the colonies tended to end at the Fall Line (the head of navigation) of the rivers that emptied into its great bays (e.g., the Delaware and the Chesapeake).

In 1785, the James River Company was formed, with former Revolutionary War Commander in Chief George Washington as honorary president, to build locks around the falls at Richmond.

Promoted by such men as George Washington, Edmund Randolph, and John Marshall, the James River Company opened in 1790 as the first commercial canal in the United States.

These flat-bottomed boats floated down the James to Richmond laden with tobacco hogsheads and returned with French and English imports, furniture, dishes, and clothing.

Work was slow, expensive, and very labor-intensive through the rocky terrain of Virginia's Piedmont region, a transitional area between the sandy coastal plain and the mountains.

[2] After many of the original Irish laborers died of hypothermia, they were replaced by enslaved Africans hired from plantation owners who lived near the route of the canal.

The goal was to reach the Kanawha River at its head of navigation, about 30 miles (50 km) east of today's Charleston, West Virginia.

In spite of the appointment of former Confederate general Armistead Lindsay Long as Chief Engineer following his service in the Civil War (1861–1865), damage which the canal incurred during the conflict was never completely repaired.

The Virginia General Assembly, in 1878, gave the James River and Kanawha Company the right to contract with the Buchanan and Clifton Forge Railroad for Convict Labor.

[3] However both the canal and the Buchanan and Clifton Forge Railway were sold to the Richmond and Allegheny Railroad company, which built tracks along the towpaths.

Today, CSX trains loaded with coal from the mountains follow the old canal route, much of it at a gentler "water level" grade, headed to port at Newport News at Hampton Roads.

In the second half of the 20th century, portions of the old canal, locks and turning basins became the source of renewed interest in Richmond, Lynchburg and at other points along the line.

The canal lock is in Big Island on the Bedford County side of the James and is accessed by a path and a walkway underneath the bridge.

Much of the former James River and Kanawha Turnpike portage route through West Virginia is today the Midland Trail, a National Scenic Byway.