Monogahela River Navigation System
Forward Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
One of the nation's earliest and most successful river navigation systems, its series of locks and dams, begun in 1838, has provided year-round navigation between Pittsburgh and Fairmont, WV. Millions of tons of coal shipped through the locks supplied Pennsylvania's important coke, iron, and steel industries. Acquired by the federal government in 1897, the system has been expanded and modernized by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Begun in 1838, the Monongahela River's system of locks and dams became one of the nation's earliest and most successful efforts to tame a river for year-round travel and trade between Pittsburgh and Fairmont, West Virginia. Millions of tons of coal moved through its locks to feed Pennsylvania's mighty coke, iron, and steel industries. After the federal government acquired the system in 1897, the Army Corps of Engineers expanded and modernized it for generations to come.
Why it matters
This waterway helped power the industrial rise of western Pennsylvania, turning a river into a highway that carried the fuel of America's steel age.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Elizabeth
Elizabeth, PA · est. 1946
In the early republic, the town of Elizabeth on the Monongahela became a busy cradle of boatbuilding for America's western rivers. At the yards of John and Samuel Walker, shipwrights turned out vessels sturdy enough for long voyages — one launched here in 1793 made its way down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans and on to Philadelphia. These river craft carried settlers and goods into the opening trans-Appalachian frontier.
George Westinghouse
East Pittsburgh, PA · est. 1948
George Westinghouse was one of the towering inventors of America's industrial age, credited with the railroad air brake and some four hundred other patents. From his base in Pittsburgh he championed alternating-current electricity, the system that won the 'War of the Currents' and made it possible to transmit power across long distances. The company he founded turned his ideas into an industrial empire that helped electrify the modern world.
Steamboat "New Orleans"
Pittsburgh, PA · est. 2011
On October 15, 1811, the side-wheeler New Orleans slid into the Monongahela near Suke's Run — the first steamboat ever built west of the Alleghenies. Its launch proved that steam power could conquer the powerful currents of the Ohio and Mississippi, and Pittsburgh, already rich in iron and timber, quickly became a bustling yard for building the boats that carried a nation west.
John A. Roebling (1806-1869)
Pittsburgh, PA · est. 1996
John A. Roebling was a German-born engineer whose faith in twisted wire cable transformed how Americans crossed their rivers. Here in Pittsburgh in 1846 he built one of the first wire-rope suspension bridges to carry a road over the Monongahela, proving a design he would refine across the country. His genius culminated in the Brooklyn Bridge, whose plans he drew before his death in 1869 left its completion to his son Washington.