Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-07-28
NOT A WAY STATION.
Pittsburg Merchants Once Became
Very Indignant at the State,
AND SPOILED A BIG CANAL SCHEME
An Incident of the Early Business Life of
Promising City.
WHERE CHANGES HAVE BEEN MADE

Nowhere in Pittsburg have there been
such marvellous changes as in that section
of the city bounded by Tenth and Eleventh
streets, Exchange alley and New Grant
street. In telling about them yesterday,
e1-Mayor Henry A. Weaver said:
''The Pennsylvania Canal crossed to
Eleventh street by an aqueduct, continued
along this street and the margin of old
Grant street to a tunnel (same location as
the present Panhandle tunneD, through
this tunnel along Try street to the Monon-
gahela river, where there was an outlet
lock. There was a canal basin leading
from Eleventh street eastward to Stevenson
alley, in the rear of the Rush House and St.
james Hotel. and another canal basin, so
feet wide, leading from Eleventh street west
to Tenth street. Surrounding these basins
there were Is warehouses occupied by differ
ent lines of transporters.
From 1841 to 1858, continued the ex-
Mayor, 81 had boat store on Tenth street,
opposite canal basin. in the two three
story buildings yet standing at the corner of
Exchange alley. There were seven of US
who supplied canal boats with their tow
lines, oil and provisions, and from March
until November we had a busy time. Many
of the tour-section boats were owned by the
captains and not by the transporters. These
people would purchase
THEIR OWN FREIGHT
to sell along the canal between Pittsburg
and Philadelphia. This included -four,
bacon, cheese, dried peaches, apples and
other products, bills for which often ranged
from 81 800 to $1,000 each trip. But these
sales were not confined to the seven boat
stores. The merchants on Liberty street
had good share of this trade. One
not conversant with the times would
that hardly believe stream of water 80
feet wide, aud feet deep ran down from
Eleventh to Tenth street on Exchange alley.
The 13 transporters around these basins
nearly all owned their own lines running
from Pittsburg to Philadelphia. In those
days have seen steamboats, on the river
close beside each other from Smithfeld
street to Liberty street, and warehouses for
forwarding and commission along the same
distance on Water street. Agents for the
different steamers to all the ports of the
sippi river had their offices there.
"It was q great scheme of the State au-
thorities in regard to the delivery of freight
by canal boats about Pittsburg. Their de-
sign was to have freight 60 through the city
without breaking bulk. A boat going
through the tunnel would land alongside Of
a steamer, unloading therein their freight,
and after reloading for Philadelphia and
the East, would be towed to the inlet lock
at Cory or Craig street, Allegheny Citr, for
the canal voyage. But the outlet lock on
the Monongahela river met with great and
SUCCESSFUL OPPOSITION
by the commission merchants and draymen,
and in TACT the whole business community.
They argued that freight going through
without transfer from the basins would ruin
Pittsburg. The result was that only one boat
got through the tunnel, and it never again
came back to the Pennsylvania Canal. The
locks on the Monongahela and Allegheny
rivers soon went to decay, and this project
failed. Thereby the commission merchants,
and in fact the whole city, were benefited.
People believed that had the original design
been executed, Pittsburg would have been
q mere way station. From morning until
night the line of drays was unbroken from
the canal to the wharf, along Liberty and
Wood street, and now and then see an
old drayman who laid up enough of this
worlds goods in those days to keep him
comfortable for life. OF all the transporters
of those days there are now but two living,
William Thaw and Peter Graft