WABASH AND ERIE CANAL

The 'Wabash and Erie Canal' was a shipping canal that linked the Great Lakes to the Ohio River via a man-made waterway. The canal provided traders with access from the Great Lakes all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.
The canal known as the Wabash & Erie in the 1850s and thereafter, was actually a combination of four canals: the Miami and Erie Canal from the Maumee River near Toledo, Ohio to Junction, Ohio, the original Wabash and Erie Canal from Junction, Ohio to Terre Haute, Indiana, the Cross Cut Canal from Terre Haute, Indiana to Worthington, Indiana (Point Commerce), and the Central Canal from Worthington to Evansville, Indiana.

Contents

Construction

Operation

Trivia

Notes

External links

Construction

The United States Congress provided a land grant on March 2, 1827 for the canal's construction. On January 5, 1828, the Indiana General Assembly accepted the grant and appointed three commissioners.^[1] These commissioners concluded that the canal would have to extend into Ohio and petitioned that state to appoint a commission of their own. The state legislature approved the plan and new commissioners appointed. After several legislative battles begun by proponents of the railroad, the Indiana General Assembly approved the borrowing of $200,000 to begin construction. February 22, 1832 ground was broken and construction began.^[2] Construction of the canal reached Logansport by 1837.^[3]
The Panic of 1837 devastated Indiana's program of internal improvements, but did not stop construction entirely.^[4] The canal reached Lafayette by 1843, Terre Haute by 1848 and Evansville by 1853.^[5]
During the summer of 1991, the Gronauer Lock was uncovered at New Haven, Indiana, during the construction of I-469. This is the only intact wooden timber lock discovered. Part of the Gronauer Lock is now on display at the Indiana Museum of History.

Operation

It began operation in the summer of 1843. It only operated for about a decade before it became apparent that the canal was uneconomic. Even when canal boats were operated at extremely slow speeds, the banks rapidly eroded, and the canal had to be constantly dredged to be operable. Terre Haute, Indiana, housed the headquarters of the canal from 1847 through 1876, when the canal lands were sold at an auction conducted by resident trustee Thomas Dowling at the Vigo County Court House.
The last canalboat on the Wabash Canal made its last docking in 1874 in Huntington, Indiana, but other sections shut down years earlier. In 1877, Paulding County, Ohio residents put the final nail in the canal system's coffin: unhappy with mosquitos breeding in the stagnant waters of Six Mile Reservoir, they cut the dike and drained it in the Reservoir war. There were several other "reservoir wars" during the canal's colorful history over the same issue, including the Clay County Canal War in Indiana.
The right-of-way through Fort Wayne was purchased by the New York, Chicago, and Lake Erie Railway (the Nickel Plate Line) which ran from Buffalo - Chicago. This allowed the railway to run straight through the heart of a major midwestern city without razing a single home. The canal right-of-way was also directly adjacent to downtown, which made the new railway quite convenient for passengers and many businesses.

Trivia

★ The combined Miami and Erie/Wabash and Erie canal system was, at 635 miles in length, second only in length to the 1,115-mile Grand Canal of China.

★ The highest section of the canal in a geographic sense was where it crossed the moraine in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which gave birth to that city's nickname of the "Summit City."

★ A modern semi is legally limited in most states to about 40 tons - the same displacement as a canal boat. It could be towed at its speed limit of 4 MPH with one mule. A semi typically has about 400 HP to travel at its speed limit of 55 MPH.

Notes

1. Charles R. Poinsatte, Fort Wayne During the Canal Era 1828-1855 ([Indianapolis:] Indiana Historical Bureau, 1969), 33-34.
2. Pointsatte, 35-36
3. Pointsatte, 80.
4. Pointsatte, 81.
5. Andrew R. L. Cayton, Frontier Indiana (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1996), 285.

External links

★ Canal Construction in Indiana - ''The Indiana Historian,'' September 1997

★ Wabash and Erie Canal in Carroll County

★ The Early History of Fort Wayne

★ Wabash and Erie Canal Journey

★ Maumee Valley Heritage Corridor

★ Gronauer Lock discovery