page_title: Wabash and Erie Canal
section_title: Operation
hierarchical_section_title: Wabash and Erie Canal / Operation
caption_attribution_description: A pontoon boat floats on a restored section of the Wabash and Erie Canal in the town of Delphi in Carroll County, Indiana. Photo looks southwest.
context_page_description: The Wabash and Erie Canal was a shipping canal that linked the Great Lakes to the Ohio River via an artificial waterway. The canal provided traders with access from the Great Lakes all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Over 460 miles long, it was the longest canal ever built in North America.
  The canal known as the Wabash & Erie in the 1850s and thereafter, was actually a combination of four canals: the Miami and Erie Canal from the Maumee River near Toledo, Ohio, to Junction, Ohio, the original Wabash and Erie Canal from Junction to Terre Haute, Indiana, the Cross Cut Canal from Terre Haute, Indiana, to Worthington, Indiana, and the Central Canal from Worthington to Evansville, Indiana.
context_section_description: The canal began operation in the summer of 1843. It only operated for about a decade before it became apparent that the canal was not economically viable. Even when canal boats were operated at extremely slow speeds, the banks rapidly eroded, and the canal had to be constantly dredged to be operable. Terre Haute, Indiana, housed the headquarters of the canal from 1847 through 1876, when the canal lands were sold at an auction conducted by resident trustee Thomas Dowling at the Vigo County Courthouse.
  The last canalboat on the Wabash Canal made its last docking in 1874 in Huntington, Indiana, but other sections shut down years earlier. In 1887, Paulding County, Ohio, residents put the final nail in the canal system's coffin: unhappy with mosquitoes breeding in the stagnant waters of Six Mile Reservoir, they cut the dike and drained it in the Reservoir War. There were several other "reservoir wars" during the canal's colorful history over the same issue, including the Clay County Canal War in Indiana.
  The right-of-way through Fort Wayne was purchased by the New York, Chicago and Lake Erie Railway (the Nickel Plate Road) which ran from Buffalo to Chicago. This allowed the railway to run straight through the heart of a major midwestern city without razing a single home. The canal right-of-way was also directly adjacent to downtown, which made the new railway quite convenient for passengers and many businesses. The canal from Napoleon to Toledo was paved over to make U.S. Route 24.
caption: A boat on the canal in Delphi.
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