Pennsylvania Canal
Near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
At this spot, three great divisions of the Pennsylvania Canal once converged in a single basin: the Susquehanna Division, the Juniata Division, and the Eastern Division. The canal was a state-owned artificial waterway system authorized in eighteen twenty-six and largely finished by eighteen thirty-four, designed to bind Philadelphia and Pittsburgh together in a vast inland trade network. It included several canal divisions and two railroads, including a remarkable cable-powered inclined-plane railroad over the Allegheny Mountains.
By linking the Susquehanna valley to the Ohio River valley, Pennsylvania briefly competed with the Erie Canal for dominance of American commerce. The railroads made the canal obsolete within a generation, but it transformed Pennsylvania's economy during its short working life.
