Pennsylvania Canal (Juniata Division)
Penn Township, Perry County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
This Division was built in 1828-33. It extended to the eastern end of the Allegheny Portage Railroad at Hollidaysburg, a distance of 127 miles. Just west of here, the Canal crossed the Juniata by an aqueduct which was used until 1901. Abutment and piers remain.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In the canal-building fever of the late 1820s, Pennsylvania dug the Juniata Division as one link in its ambitious Main Line of Public Works, a state-financed answer to New York's wildly successful Erie Canal. Completed by 1833, this 127-mile stretch of water carried boats up the Juniata Valley to Hollidaysburg, where the extraordinary Allegheny Portage Railroad hoisted them over the mountains. A stone aqueduct just west of here ferried the towpath and canal across the river itself, and its abutment and piers still stand as ghosts of a vanished waterway.
Why it matters
The Pennsylvania canal system was a bold, ruinously expensive bet to keep the state's commerce competitive in the early republic — a chapter of American infrastructure soon eclipsed by the railroads that ran alongside it.
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Related events
- · Construction of the Pennsylvania Main Line of Public Works
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Pennsylvania Canal (Eastern Division)
Reed Township, PA · est. 1952
The Eastern Division of the Pennsylvania Canal, built between 1826 and 1833, carried iron, coal, and lumber along the lower Susquehanna and remained in use until 1901. Here at the old Clark's Ferry towpath bridge, canal boats crossed the wide river to continue their journeys. The Lykens Valley coal trade fed into the system from the east by way of the Wiconisco Canal, adding the region's anthracite to the flow of commerce.
Pennsylvania Canal
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Between 1826 and 1834 Pennsylvania built a sprawling state-owned system of canals and railroads meant to link Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Erie in a single web of inland trade. It embraced six main canal divisions and two railroads, a public works gamble to keep the state competitive with New York's Erie Canal. Here the Susquehanna, Juniata, and Eastern Divisions came together in a canal basin, one of the network's key junctions.
Pennsylvania Canal (Susquehanna Division)
Watts Township, PA · est. 1952
Running roughly 41 miles from Duncan's Island up to Northumberland, the Susquehanna Division opened around 1831 and worked until the turn of the twentieth century. Its thirteen locks, seven aqueducts, dam, and towpath bridge were a considerable feat of hand-dug engineering following the river's course. Travelers along this road can still spot traces of the old canal cut into the landscape.
Rockville Bridge
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