Ohio Erie Canal

Building the hundreds of miles of canals in the 1820's in Ohio was an amazing achievement of hard work and engineering. Canals were dug out by hundreds of poor, hardworking Irish and German immigrant workers like the workers digging  here. After 7 years of digging the canal was complete in 1832.

A young boy leads a horse already hitched and ready on the towpath near one of the Akron locks. Mules were needed to make the canal boats move through the water. Often the boat carried an extra mule for emergencies. At a steady stride, a horse or mule was able to pull almost fifty times as much weight as it could with a cart on a dirt road.

 

Watch When Canals Ran Through It

Captain Pearl R. Nye: Life on the Ohio and Erie Canal [Canal Songs]