New York Dug 363 Miles by Hand. Then It Replaced The Canal Twice

In 1825 a canon fired in Buffalo and the sound crossed New York state in about an hour and a half. The message was two words, its open. The canal it announced has been widened, bypassed, drained and built over, and most people have never seen it. This video follows the Erie Canal, 363 miles from the Hudson River to Lake Erie, dug mostly by hand by workers who had never built a canal. It then follows the two times New York replaced it. What's in this video Why one state paid for the canal alone after the federal government stepped back, and why the Mohawk Valley was the only low route through the Appalachians. Jess Hawley, the bankrupt flour merchant who wrote about the canal from a debtor's prison. How surveyors with no canal experience ran the job, and how Canvass White helped solve the waterproof cement problem. The second replacement: the Barge Canal, which opened in 1918 and left the old ditch with no job. What happened to the old route: a boulevard in Syracuse, a subway tunnel in Rochester that run in the drained canal bed, and the flight of locks at Lockport you can still see. #eriecanal #newyorkhistory #forgottenRoutes #americanhistory #engineering