The original canal had 83 different hand-operated locks

Mostly using the low elevations of the Mohawk River Valley, the canal project connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic seaboard for the first time. This site has a series of old and new maps of the canal.

The unlikely engineering project connecting the Midwest to the Atlantic saw a ceremonious opening as Governor Dewitt Clinton rode with a flotilla of boats from Buffalo on Lake Erie to New York City.

Reflections on the Erie Canal traces the waterway from its 1825 opening to its evolving role today. Each short video in this 10-part series explores a different aspect of the canal and its legacy today.

Listen to this podcast from Northwestern University exploring the canal’s groundbreaking infrastructure—from locks and aqueducts to its role as America’s first large-scale engineered waterway.

Before the canal, shipping goods overland cost about $100 per ton. After its completion in 1825, rates fell to just $10—making western farm products competitive in eastern markets for the first time.

For each mile of canal that was built, 500 workers lost their lives. The threats came from multiple fronts: mudslides, floods, earthquakes and disease-carrying mosquitoes. Workplace accidents became so common that artificial limb manufacturers competed for contracts with the canal builders.

In 1832, North America’s first cholera epidemic spread inland by way of the Erie Canal, carried by immigrants arriving on ships. Fearful towns barred passengers from disembarking, yet cholera, smallpox, and other diseases still traveled the waterway.

One ingenious device created for the Erie Canal was the stump puller—a horse-powered machine using levers and chains to rip tree stumps from the ground.

After President Madison and Congress rejected the project, New York State financed the 363-mile Erie Canal entirely on its own—authorizing $7M in bonds in 1817.

By providing cheap, reliable transport to the interior, the canal made western lands more accessible. Farmers, traders, and immigrants moved into the Great Lakes region, accelerating population growth.

By redirecting western trade through New York Harbor, the canal turned New York into the nation’s commercial hub. This surge in commerce shifted financial power from Philadelphia to Wall Street, establishing the city as America’s banking capital.

The Erie Canal was one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in American history. Many have said such an effort would be impossible today. This article explores why that is the case and ponders the future of large-scale American infrastructure development.

In 1818, engineer Canvass White discovered that limestone near Chittenango, New York, could be processed into hydraulic (or waterproof) cement. This breakthrough replaced costly European imports, enabling watertight locks and aqueducts and revolutionizing American construction.

The Appalachian Mountains, spanning from Alabama to Canada, long hindered inland commerce. The Erie Canal created the first reliable water route through the range by leveraging the natural valley of the Mohawk River, revolutionizing trade and migration.

When first proposed, President Jefferson scoffed at the idea of carving a 363-mile waterway through wilderness and rock. With no precedent in American engineering, the canal seemed impossible.

Constructed decades before the invention of dynamite, the Erie Canal’s toughest obstacles were blasted through using black powder charges.

The natural wonder is also the site of great engineering feats, from the Welland Dam that first allowed ships to travel from the upper lakes to the St. Lawrence Seaway, to one of the first hydroelectric dams.

Mocked as “Clinton’s Folly” and “Clinton’s Big Ditch,” New York Gov. DeWitt Clinton championed the Erie Canal against skeptics. His political drive secured funding for the project in 1817.

Niagara Falls is powered by water from Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Erie. The Great Lakes basin spans over 260,000 square miles and holds nearly 20% of the world's surface freshwater—about two-thirds of which passes over the falls.

With no engineering schools in the US, the Erie Canal was designed and built by self-taught amateurs who improvised new methods and became known as the “Erie School of Engineering.”

The idea to facilitate trade between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea and connect the Eurasian continent was apparent even to pharaohs in the second millennium BCE. Though no physical traces remain, contemporary accounts attest to early, shorter versions of the canal, including from Herodotus.

Beyond goods, the canal carried ideas. Its corridor hosted Second Great Awakening revivals and became a center for activism—fueling abolitionist networks, women’s suffrage organizing, and other reform movements.

Historian Janice Fontanella, site manager of the Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site, joined the podcast to recount the engineering challenges, local innovations, and broader impact of constructing the Erie Canal.

Built in 1837, the Lockkeeper's House is the oldest structure on the National Mall. It once served the lockkeeper of the Washington City Canal and of an extension of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, part of early plans to bring commercial waterways into the capital.

While more container ships traverse the canal than any other type of ship, vessels carrying dry bulk goods, vehicle carriers, chemical tankers, passenger ships, and more also pass through the Central American passageway.

The Panama Canal connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through a 51-mile route that transformed global shipping when it opened in 1914. This breakdown covers how it was built, the workers behind its construction, and why its future may be challenged by climate and competition.

In 2023, canal authorities reduced traffic in the canal amid severely dry conditions. These seven infographics from the Woodwell Climate Research Center explain exactly what happened that historically dry October, and how it affected global supply chains.

Formed by retreating glaciers, the Great Lakes system feeds Niagara Falls through the Niagara River. Together, the lakes contain about 23 quadrillion liters (5,400 cubic miles) of water, enough to cover the land portion of the continental US to a depth of 3 meters (9.84 feet).

In June 1969, the US Army Corps of Engineers diverted the Niagara River to halt flow over the American Falls. The dry riverbed allowed geologists to study erosion and remove dangerous rock buildup.

Utrecht, a city in central Netherlands, has implemented an innovative "fish doorbell" system at a river lock to assist migrating fish during their spring journey to spawning areas. This unique setup allows online viewers to participate in helping fish navigate through the locks. An underwater camera is installed at the Weerdsluis lock, streaming live video to a dedicated website, where viewers may press a digital button when they see a fish.

In the mid-1800s, the Suspension Bridge near Niagara Falls connected the US to Canada and served as a frequent crossing location for people escaping slavery via the Underground Railroad.

For about two decades, Suez Canal-builder and Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps led the project, but financial troubles forced it into the hands of the US, who completed it in 1914. This timeline, made to accompany the definitive PBS American Experience documentary about the canal, highlights major moments in its construction.

This platform uses satellite data to track chokepoints and trade disruptions along the shipping lanes that crisscross the globe. Search for data from more than 1,600 ports, or run the climate scenario simulator.

The falls cut through distinct layers of ancient rock: a hard cap of Lockport Dolomite sits atop softer layers of Rochester and Queenston Shale. This structure allows the falls to maintain a steep vertical drop as erosion undercuts the caprock.

The system of aqueducts that supplied Byzantine Constantinople with water had more than 500 kilometers of channels. These channels fed hundreds of cisterns. The largest were open pools (one, now drained, houses an entire modern shopping center); but the most impressive were vast covered chambers like the Basilica Cistern, still a highlight of any visit to Istanbul.

At its current erosion rate of roughly one foot per year, Niagara Falls is expected to retreat all the way to Lake Erie in about 50,000 years.

The Netherlands' capital consists of concentric canals lined with towering, unusually thin row homes, an altogether unique profile in Europe and the world. When it was growing, the city was a key trade hub, and merchants wanted direct access to waterways. Canals were built like roads, and houses were required to be very thin to allow for more homes to line the canals.

In March 1848, ice jams halted the Niagara River entirely for over 24 hours, allowing people to walk on the riverbed—a rare event that drew international headlines.

The canal displaced Panamanian communities, with towns like Gatun and Gorgona dismantled and farmlands lost, reshaping the region forever.

In the 1800s, the National Mall looked nothing like it does today. Canals, rail lines, markets, and industrial uses crisscrossed the Mall before later redesigns cleared it into a unified civic landscape.

Before a 1912 collapse, winter ice bridges across the river were so thick that entrepreneurs built bars, photo studios, and entire carnival midways on the frozen surface.

A 113-mile series of bridges called the Overseas Highway connects Key West—the southernmost point of the United States—to mainland Florida. The route originally served as a railroad but has required regular reconstruction due to major storms. This video traces the history of the project in fascinating detail.