page_title: Erie Canal
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Erie Canal / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Gateway Harbor along the Erie Canal in North Tonawanda, NY. This photo was taken about 1500 feet from the present day western terminus of the Erie Canal where it connects to the Niagara River.
context_page_description: The Erie Canal is a canal in New York that is part of the east–west, cross-state route of the New York State Canal System. It originally ran 363 miles from the Hudson River in Albany to Lake Erie in Buffalo. It was built to create a navigable water route from New York City and the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. It was completed in 1825 and was the second longest canal in the world, and it greatly enhanced the development and economy of New York, New York City, and the United States.
  The canal was first proposed in the 1780s, then re-proposed in 1807. A survey was authorized, funded, and executed in 1808. Proponents of the project gradually wore down opponents; its construction began in 1817, and it opened on October 26, 1825. The canal has 34 numbered locks starting with Black Rock Lock and ending downstream with the Troy Federal Lock. Both are owned by the federal government. It has an elevation difference of about 565 feet.
  At the time, bulk goods were limited to pack animals with a 250-pound maximum and there were no railways, so water was the most cost-effective way to ship bulk goods.
context_section_description: In 1918, the Canal was replaced by the larger New York State Barge Canal. This new canal replaced much of the original route, leaving many abandoned sections (most notably between Syracuse and Rome). New digging and flood control technologies allowed engineers to canalize rivers that the original canal had sought to avoid, such as the Mohawk, Seneca, and Clyde rivers, and Oneida Lake. In sections that did not consist of canalized rivers (particularly between Rochester and Buffalo), the original Erie Canal channel was enlarged to 120 feet (37 m) wide and 12 feet (3.7 m) deep. The expansion allowed barges up to 2,000 short tons (1,800 t) to use the Canal. This expensive project was politically unpopular in parts of the state not served by the canal, and failed to save it from becoming obsolete for commercial shipping.
  The new alignment began on the Hudson River at the border between Cohoes and Waterford, where it ran northwest with five locks (the so-called "Waterford Flight"), running into the Mohawk River east of Crescent. The Waterford Flight is claimed to be one of the steepest series of locks in the world.
  While the old Canal ran next to the Mohawk all the way to Rome, the new canal ran through the river, which was straightened or widened where necessary. At Ilion, the new canal left the river for good, but continued to run on a new alignment parallel to both the river and the old canal to Rome. From Rome, the new route continued almost due west, merging with Fish Creek just east of its entry into Oneida Lake.
  From Oneida Lake, the new canal ran west along the Oneida River, with cutoffs to shorten the route. At Three Rivers the Oneida River turns northwest, and was deepened for the Oswego Canal to Lake Ontario. The new Erie Canal turned south there along the Seneca River, which turns west near Syracuse and continues west to a point in the Montezuma Marsh. There the Cayuga and Seneca Canal continued south with the Seneca River, and the new Erie Canal again ran parallel to the old canal along the bottom of the Niagara Escarpment, in some places running along the Clyde River, and in some places replacing the old canal. At Pittsford, southeast of Rochester, the canal turned west to run around the south side of Rochester, rather than through downtown. The canal crosses the Genesee River at the Genesee Valley Park, then rejoins the old path near North Gates.
  From there it was again roughly an upgrade to the original canal, running west to Lockport. This reach of 64.2 miles from Henrietta to Lockport is called "the 60‑mile level" since there are no locks and the water level rises only two feet over the entire segment. Diversions from and to adjacent natural streams along the way are used to maintain the canal's level. It runs southwest to Tonawanda, where the new alignment discharges into the Niagara River, which is navigable upstream to the New York Barge Canal's Black Rock Lock and thence to the Canal's original "Western Terminus" at Buffalo's Inner Harbor.
  The growth of railroads and highways across the state, and the opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, caused commercial traffic on the canal to decline dramatically during the second half of the 20th century.
caption: Gateway Harbor in North Tonawanda, about 1000 feet from the present day western terminus of the Erie Canal where it connects to the Niagara River
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "3264", "Image ImageLength": "1836", "Image Make": "SAMSUNG", "Image Model": "SCH-I535", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "I535VRALG1", "Image DateTime": "2012:09:09 19:39:03", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "242", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[43, 1, 17961/1000]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "W", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[78, 52, 16219/500]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "148899/1000", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[23, 39, 2]", "GPS GPSDate": "2012:09:09", "Image GPSInfo": "4898", "Thumbnail ImageWidth": "512", "Thumbnail ImageLength": "288", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5234", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "20364", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/30", "EXIF FNumber": "13/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:09:09 19:39:03", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:09:09 19:39:03", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "157/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "69/25", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "337/128", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "69/25", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Average", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "37/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3264", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1836", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "4868", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "ZDFF01"}