The One Minute Geographer: The Amazing Importance of the Erie Canal
This post is a continuation of the latest series about LINES in US geography. So think of the route of the Erie Canal as a line! I’m focusing this series of posts on the importance of the Erie Canal in US history, geography and even politics. I don’t want to focus on details about its length and depth and all that. You can see all that on Wiki. But we’ll begin with a few basic facts and maps. I’ll number what I think are some of the most important impacts of the construction of the canal. So, here’s the first:
1. The Erie Canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes — the first navigable waterway cutting through the Appalachian barrier. If you’ve read earlier posts about the Fall Line and portages you can appreciate how amazing and how important this accomplishment was. It was like finding the Northwest Passage!
Completed in 1825, the Erie Canal runs east and west through upstate New York between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. When built, the 363-mile canal was the second-longest in the world after the Grand Canal in China. Think about that distance for a minute: that’s about the driving distance from Washington DC to Cleveland, OH or, with 20 more miles, the distance from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
