vansville, Ind. — The Wabash & Erie Canal connected Lake Erie to the Ohio River. It was the longest canal constructed in North America, running for more than 460 miles. The canal project proved extremely important to the development of early Evansville, though the canal itself was ultimately a financial failure.
Canals are manmade channels that connect two larger waterways. Towpaths where constructed alongside the channels so that animals could pull the boats down the canals, which lacked the running waters to propel them.
Like many Mid-western states, Indiana sought to emulate the success of the Erie Canal in upstate New York. The Erie Canal, completed in 1828, helped to connect the east coast to the interior of the county.
Indiana State Legislature passed the “Indiana Mammoth Internal Improvement Act” in 1836. The Act would spend ten million dollars on infrastructure across the state, including the Wabash & Erie Canal.
Early Evansville was chosen as the site where the canal would meet the Ohio.
The announcement of the plan spurred investments in the city, boosting the economy and bringing new residents seeking work.
Plans called for several sections of the canal to be constructed simultaneously. Construction for the southern portion of the canal, which would connect Evansville to Worthington Indiana, began in Evansville in 1837.
The Improvement Act was largely financed through loans. A financial panic beginning in late 1839 caused the canal project to shut down.
The recession lasted for nearly 4 years, the longest and most severe of 19th Century United States. Indiana could not keep up with its debts and began negotiations with its creditors.
All projects other than the Wabash & Erie Canal begun by the Improvement Act were turned over to creditors. Once the recession ended, the canal project was restarted.
Again, Evansville saw a boost in investment in the city, anticipating the success of the canal.
The canal was finally completed in 1853, after significant delays.
In Vanderburgh County, the canal traveled along what is now Indiana State Road 62.
Once it reached downtown Evansville, the canal turned to run parallel to the city’s roads along what is now Fourth and Fifth Streets ended at the canal basin on the land that is now occupied by the Evansville Old Court House.
Plans originally called for a second leg of the canal to follow down to Second Street but it was never built. Some remnants of the canal can be still seen along Morgan Avenue near Stockwell Road.
The canal proved slow and tow boat could only carry so much cargo. The shallow waters in the canal basins could easily freeze during cold weather. Both flooding and drought would close the canal way.
Some sections proved so poorly constructed that they failed to hold water even in ideal conditions. Worse still for the canal system was the widespread adoption of trains and railways in the United States, which proved far more reliable and could carry more freight, more quickly.
The canal system could not compete and much of the southern portion had fallen out of use by 1860. The canal was slowly was filled in over the next decade. Ironically, much of the leveled ground created as towpaths for the canals were redeveloped as railways.
History Lesson is a pictorial history of Evansville compiled by Daniel Smith, local history and digitization librarian at the Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library.
Comments