Conestoga Navigation Company
Lancaster Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
A slackwater canal between Lancaster and Safe Harbor, built following the company's incorporation in 1825, facilitated access to Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other ports. This canal's 18-mile course included nine sets of locks and dams; Lock No.1 was here. The company's name varied after 1837; financial problems mounted, and last lock fees were collected in 1872. Later, between 1913 and 1946, surviving dams were used to generate electricity.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In the canal-building fever of the 1820s, the Conestoga Navigation Company set out to tame Lancaster County's Conestoga Creek with a slackwater system of locks and dams, connecting the rich farm country around Lancaster to the great port markets of Philadelphia and Baltimore. Chartered in 1825, its eighteen-mile course climbed through nine sets of locks, with Lock No. 1 standing here at the head of the line. Like many early canals it struggled financially against the coming railroads, collecting its last lock tolls in 1872. In a fitting second life, several of its abandoned dams were later harnessed to generate electricity from 1913 into the 1940s.
Why it matters
The canal captures the ambitious, short-lived era when slackwater navigation briefly stitched America's interior to its seaports before rails made such waterways obsolete.
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