The C&O Canal could be shut down by too much water or too little, and this steam pump maintained the water level during periods of drought. A pump house built on this site in the 1870s contained a brick boiler room and a wooden engine room. Steam from the boiler powered two pumps that pulled water from the Potomac River into a well, and water from the well spilled into a concrete flume that carried it across the towpath and into the canal.