The James River flows from the mountains through Lynchburg and Richmond to the coast. It is the largest river in Virginia and historically one of the state’s most important transportation corridors. Before the Civil War, investors built the Kanawha Canal from Richmond to Buchanan, about 20 miles southwest of here, making river transportation safer and more reliable. Tow barges and packet boats carrying flour, wheat, pig iron, and dry goods made regular runs up and down the James. The rapid expansion of railroads during the middle to late 1800s rendered the James River and Kanawha Canal obsolete, but the restored lock remains a reminder of Virginia’s transportation history and of the connections mountain farmers had to wider trade.