Illinois' I & M Canal's 175th Anniversary-- Part 2

The importance of the Illinois & Michigan (I&M) Canal lies in the fact that it in effect, connected the Great Lakes with the Mississippi River via the Illinois River.

The miniature 16-by-24-foot museum is filled with interesting artifacts that lend color to the daily lives of the canal toll collectors.  On a shelf, you'll find a bugle and a conch shell, both used by boat captains to wake up the sleeping collector, whose rope bed was in the southwest corner of the building.

In 2009, a full-sized replica canal boat, previously featured in the film "Prairie Tides," was moved to the site.  The barge is lined with boxes and crates symbolizing the 150-plus tons of cargo those boats hauled along the canal.

For more information, visit pickusottawail.com/attractions/im canal-toll-house.

--Cooter

Illinois' I&M Canal's 175th Anniversary-- Part 1

From the April 8, 2023, Northwest Herald "Experience I&M Canal's 

Of course, people have heard of the Erie Canal, the Suez Canal and Panama Canal, but fewer are familiar with this one.

At the end of April, I wrote about Illinois Governor JB Pritzker declaring April as the official month of the I&M (Illinois & Michigan).

Here are some things you might want to check out in regards to this important canal, which connected the Great Lakes with the Mississippi River via the Illinois River.

Ottawa, Illinois, has a remarkable I&M Canal structure in the form of an original tollhouse which has many recovered items and fascinating displays about the waterway' storied history in a compact one-room footprint.

Located in the heart of Ottawa's downtown, right along the I&M towpath, you'll find the immacilate-looking, 175-year-old structure that a group of dedicated volunteers turned the husk of a building into a paonstakenly researched approximation of what the canal collector's tollhouse would have looked like back in 1848.

--Cooter

April 2023 Official Month of I&M Canal in Illinois

To commemorate the 175th anniversary of the openingof the Illinois & Michigan Canal and the enormius impact it had on the region, state and nation, Governor JB Pritzker declared April 2023 the official month of the I&M Canal.

The next several posts will be about it and things you can do along it today.

--CootCanal

Seneca Falls, New York and 'It's a Wonderful Life'

From Wikipedia.

Seneca Falls is reportedly the inspiration for the fictional city of Bedford Falls in the movie "It's a Wonderful Life."

The census of 2010 put the population at 9,040.

The town is on the northern part of the Finger Lakes District.

At the conclusion of the American Revolution, this area was part of the Central New York Military Tract of some 2 million acres of land set aside to  compensate New York soldiers for serving in the war.  The land would be given to the soldiers in lots of 600 acres in size.  This caused a lot of growth in the area's population.

In 1818, a canal was completed connecting  Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake an d these were later connected to the Erie Canal in 1828.

The Seneca Falls Convention was held there July 19-20, 1848, and was the first women's rights convention organized by women explicitly to discuss the subject.  Elizabeth Cady Stanton was involved with this.

--Cooter

200 Years Ago, the Erie Canal-- Part 7: "Buffalo Gals Won't You Come Out Tonight"

**  As the Erie Canal's original Lake Erie terminus, Buffalo became America's eighth largest city.  To emphasize that heyday heritage, Buffalo has excavated and revived its largely abandoned canal bed as Canalside, an urban park and recreational  development where you can catch a concert or rent kayaks.

In Victorian times, the Canalside was where crews of east-bound Midwest grain freighters were paid -- and where their wages were squandered on booze and floozies.

Larry Mruk, who leads walking tours for Explore Buffalo said this is the spot that inspired the folk song "Buffalo Gals"  They were the painted ladies who would come out at night and dance by the light of the moon.

What was the song George Bailey and Mary Hatch had in "It's A Wonderful Life?"

Well...  Something I Definitely Did Not Know About That a Song.  --Cooter

200 Years Ago, the Erie Canal-- Part 6: Locks and Wurlitzer

**  The Rochester Museum and Science Center has a hands-on model of a lock, while the town of Lockport is where seven locks initially raised and lower canal boats 167 feet, the same distance as the natural plunge at the nearby Niagara Falls.

Today, there are just two locks at Lockport.

You can take a narrated boat trip here with Lockport Locks & Erie Canal Cruises.

**  North Tonawanda, the canal's western terminus since the 1917-1918 enlargement of the waterway, is where the canal feeds into the Niagara River.  A beautifully developed canalside docking area is located in the spruced-up downtown, once home to factories for Wurlitzer organs and Herschell carousels.

--CootCanal

200 Years Ago, the Erie Canal-- Part 5: A "Wizard of Oz" Connection

**  The City of Little Falls had the foresight to keep its old canal warehouses intact.  Today they house boutiques in what's called Canal Place.

**  At tiny Chittenango, once a hub of canal-boat building and repair, the Chittenango Landing Canal Boat Museum features a replica canal boat.  "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" author Frank Baum was born in Chittenango in 1856 and the village has various Oz-inspired touches, including the Yellow Brick Road Casino.

**  In downtown Syracuse, where the original canal flowed, you can see dozens of artifacts and look around a canal boat replica at the Erie Canal Museum in the old Weighlock Building, where tolls were assessed by poundage.

I wonder if there are any original canal boats remaining?

--CootBoat

200 Years Later, the Erie Canal-- Part 2: 35 Locks To Your Destination

Recreational boats traveling the full length of the Erie Canal are lifted or lowered through 35 elevation locks and can dock at towns built alongside the canal.

The labor intensive construction (remember this is before the machine age) was completed in 1825 and the canal enabled settlers to sail west while grain and agricultural products moved east.  The boats were slender, shallow-draft wooden vessels.  It transformed New York City into America's largest port and turned outposts like Cleveland and Chicago into mercantile hubs.

Construction of the Erie Canal was essentially a learn-as-you-go engineering technology and advances made on this helped the later (and bigger) Suez and Panama canals.

You can drive alongside much of the 338-mile canal and the state of New York has issued driving and bicycling maps and brochures for the Erie Canal's bicentennial.  Instead of taking the 4 1/2 hour zip along the I-90 tollway, you can enjoy a leisurely trip along the old canal.

And Sing "Low Bridge, Everybody Down, Cause We're Coming to a Town."  --Cooter

One Man's Travels On the Erie Canal (and Beyond) in 1836-- Part 3: Ohio's Canals and Two Presidents

David Sprague Crandall next crossed Lake Erie by steamer, landing in Cleveland.

Ohio's recent work on their canal system allowed him to travel several more days to the Ohio River, where he traveled again by steamer which he described as, "a little squeaking stern-wheeler which was aground half the time and the passengers kept running back and forth across the boat to rock it through through the sand bars."  I take it he was not overly impressed.

It was in Cincinnati that he saw President Jackson as well as William Henry Harrison, two War of 1812 heroes.  Of course, Harrison would himself be elected to the presidency four years later.

--Cooter

Two Canal Boats Found in Lake Ontario--- Part 2

But, then, you have to wonder what the canal boats were doing in the lake when they sank?

Two divers using deep-sea apparatus filmed the wrecks, located some 200 feet down.  The identification of the two has not happened but it is believed that the vessels were built in the mid-1800s when the Erie Canal was widened to accommodate larger boats.

Records of the more than 600 Lake Ontario shipwrecks didn't turn up a match for either one.

Jim Kennard thinks that they weer probably being towed when they sank.  Both show damage indicating their cargoes may have shifted during fast-changing weather conditions.  They were likely older boats whose owners tried to get one more voyage out of them on the lake, which is connected to the Erie Canal by the Oswego Canal.

Mystery Solved?  --Cooter

Two Canal Boats Discovered in Lake Ontario-- Part 1

From the Jan. 22, 2015, USA Today "Shipwreck hunters make unusual find" by AP.

First, there was the possible discovery of LaSalle's Griffin and now this.  But why would canal boats be in Lake Ontario?

The wrecks of two 19th-century canal boats have been found on the bottom of Lake Ontario.  This is a very unusual discovery because this type of vessel would not be good for use on open water.

A team of New York shipwreck hunters made the announcement on Jan. 21st.

The three-member team from the Rochester, NY, area discovered the boats using side-scan sonar last year while searching for shipwrecks on the east end of Lake Ontario.

The sunken canal boats-- one 65-feet long and the other 78 feet long--  were found within a few miles of each other about midway between Oswego and Sackets Harbor (a name I have come across often in connection with the War of 1812).

More to Come.  --DaShipWreckCoot

July 4th Through the Years

This date in U.S. History, besides being our 238th birthday today.

1801:  The United States Military Academy to train Army officers officially opened.

1803:  The Louisiana Purchase was announced in newspapers.  A great land deal.  France sold a huge tract of land to the U.S. for $15 million, coming out to 3 cents an acre.

1817:  Construction on the Erie Canal began in New York state.  It connected the Hudson River at Albany and Lake Erie at Buffalo.

JULY 4th was a bad day for earlier American presidents.  Three died on this date in 1826 and 1831.

1826: Presidents Thomas Jefferson (3rd) and John Adams (2nd)
1831:  James Madison (6th)

--Cooter

Panama Canal to Expand

From the Aug. 16, 2012, Chicago Tribune"Wider Panama Canal to remake trade routes" by Tim Johnson.

Since the SS Ancon became the first ship to go through the locks of the Panama Canal on Aug. 15, 1914, the roughly 50-mile-long waterway, more than a million ships have used it.  But shipping was always constrained by the size of the locks, permitting no vessel longer than 965 feet, wider than 106 feet or drawing more than 39 feet of water from passing through.

This has becoming an increasing problem as ships have been getting much larger.  A third lane through the locks is planned to open in 2014 and ships as long as 1,200 feet, 160 feet wide and 50 feet draft will be able to use this lane.

This has Panama looking at reaping a lot of money.  However, US Atlantic ports are now having dredging projects to deepen harbors and approaches in Miami, Jacksonville, Savannah, Charleston and New York.

It's a Canal Thing, You Know.  --Cooter

Sanitary and Ship Canal Now on NRHP

From Feb. 17th CBS Chicago.

Sounds a bit unsanitary and actually, in the early days, it was. This caused a great fight between Chicago and points further south along the Illinois River and St. Louis.

The construction of this 28-mile-long canal made it possible for Chicago to reverse the flow of the Chicago River in order for the city's waste to go to the Illinois River and not to Lake Michigan, the source of the city's drinking water (hence the name Sanitary). I can't imagine something like this being done today, but back then, Chicago was "The City of Big Shoulders."

Begun in 1892, it too eight years to complete it and it connected the South Branch of the Chicago River with the Illinois River at Lockport. On May 2, 1900, Spanish American War hero Admiral George Dewey came to dedicate it. In 1907, it was extended from Lockport to Joliet, which took the construction of a lock to handle the 36-foot drop between the two cities.

This, of course, was good for Chicago, but not so good for those unfortunate towns downriver. Chicago's sewage got flushed downstream instead of to Lake Michigan.

St, Louis threatened to sue, but Chicago opened the canal early, before the suit could go through.

The canal is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Today, the issue isn't so much sewage as it is Asian carp.

A Real Stinky Situation. --Cooter