May 2016

     The Augusta Canal Museum is located in an old brick cotton mill.  The Canal was built in 1845 to power the mill.  In the area the river dropped 50 feet in elevation allowing for enough force to spin water wheels.  Water from the Savannah River flows into the canal.  The water spun turbines that turned looms in the textile mill.  Cotton was grown in the area and had been shipped to mills in New England until the canal was built so Augusta could have its own mill. 

     Later the city water system got its water from the canal.  In the 1890s the mills and town got electricity from generators that spun by the water of the canal.

     Today the mill where the museum is housed is not a mill, but there museum receives electric power from two old generators turned by the water of the canal.  Also housed in the old mill building is offices and some apartments.

           Machines from the old mill at the museum.