Buchanan, Virginia, was the western terminus of the James River and Kanawha Canal, a major Virginia engineering project proposed by George Washington in 1785 to create a water route from Tidewater up the James River as far as practical and open travel from the Atlantic to the Ohio River. After the General Assembly approved the project on January 14, 1785, the James River Company was formed, with Washington as honorary president and Edmund Randolf as acting president, and its charter called for a continuous waterway from Looney’s Ferry to the navigable water at Richmond. Construction advanced slowly: the first section from Richmond seven miles westward took ten years, difficult navigation from Richmond to Buchanan was possible by 1816, the State took over operations in 1820, and in 1832 the legislature created the James River and Kanawha Company as a joint stock company with private subscriptions and State aid. Under president Joseph Carrington Cabell, known as the “Father of the James River and Kanawha Canal,” work resumed in 1835 between Richmond and Lynchburg, and the section from Lynchburg to Buchanan, begun in 1841, was completed in 1851. The 196-mile canal cost $8,259,187.00, and the first packet boat from Lynchburg to Buchanan, the John Early, left on November 11, 1851, carrying dignitaries, prominent citizens, members of the Saunders Band, and cannoneers of the Lynchburg Artillery; crowds gathered along the canal and at every lock to cheer it, and when it reached Buchanan that evening, residents celebrated with artillery, dances, and parties that lasted until dawn. The canal’s arrival sparked a boom in Buchanan, where John Wilson expanded his business and completed Wilson Warehouse, Jacob Haney began the Hotel Botetourt, and warehouses and businesses rose along Water and High Streets, as seen in Edward Beyer’s 1855 painting. The canal reduced the effort and time required to move wheat, tobacco, iron ore, and timber, cutting journeys that once took weeks to three to three and one-half days. By the 1860s, toll revenues had fallen because of competition from railroads and Civil War damage, though the canal briefly revived when bateaux were needed after railroad destruction, and Buchanan became an important Confederate supply depot sending agricultural produce and pig iron to Richmond while local farmers supplied beef, cotton, yarn, and corn. After war damage, a severe flood in 1877, and declining traffic, packet boats and freight made their last trips by 1880. In 1887, Buchanan’s Major John W. Johnston became the canal’s last president and kept the company afloat until its assets were sold to the Richmond and Alleghany Railway Company, ending the James River and Kanawha Canal Company after ninety-five years and clearing the way for railroad construction along the canal towpath.