FROM HEATHER COX RICHARDSON:
[I]n fall 1825, . . . New Yorkers marked the completion of the canal with celebrations, cannon fire, and a ceremony with Governor Clinton pouring a keg of water from Lake Erie into the Atlantic.
The festivities began on October 26, 1825, exactly 200 years before economist Krugman wrote about the importance of government support for renewable energy, demonstrating that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/october-26-2025?r=1se78m&utm_medium=ios
GEORGE WILL ALSO WROTE ABOUT THIS IMPORTANT HISTORICAL EVENT:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/10/22/eric-canal-american-commerce/
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Immigrant labor, mostly Irish, provided a significant part of the work force, particularly as the canal moved west and the going got tough. https://www.history.com/articles/erie-canal-construction-engineering-labor
As noted in these articles, there were no trained engineers in the young U.S. SurI veyors and others who designed and supervised the work literally “learned on the job.”
Because of the bicentennial of the Canal, Cathy and I made it a focus of our drive this summer from Wisconsin to Maine with our 13-year-old grandson Oscar. We stopped at the Erie Canal Discovery Center in Lockport, NY, which I highly recommend.
The staff was friendly, welcoming, and knowledgeable. They even let us bring our traveling field spaniel Duncan with us on the tour. The museum itself was very informative and manageable. We learned a lot in an hour through a well-curated mixture of art, graphics, artifacts, working models, and expert narration from an expert guide. It ended with a simulated trip through a lock.
Interestingly, just a few days earlier on the our trip we had gone through several of the historic Fox River Locks near Green Bay with the Green Bay branch of the family aboard our son Wick’s boat. So, we got to know and experience locks, history, and engineering feats that helped build America.
Here’s a link to the museum:
https://niagarahistory.org/visit-the-erie-canal-discovery-center/
And, here’s a link to information about the Fox River Locks, originally built by the Corps of Engineers, but now owned and operated for pleasure boaters by the Fox River Navigation System Authority:
Here are some pictures:
