HistoricSiteMarkers

New York → Massachusetts → Utah

Engines of America

Canals, mills, rails, and the machines that built a nation

Industry and transportation remade the United States. Stand at the locks that opened the West, the mills that started the Industrial Revolution, and the spot where the rails finally met.

3 stops · roughly 2,468 miles end to end

The itinerary

  1. 1

    Lockport Locks — Flight of Five

    Lockport, New York

    To lift canal boats 60 feet over the Niagara Escarpment, engineers built five paired locks — boats going up on one side while others descended. The project drew workers from across Europe and gave the city of Lockport its name.

    TransportationIndustry & Invention
  2. 2

    Lowell Textile Mills

    Lowell, Massachusetts

    Lowell harnessed the Merrimack's drop through a network of power canals to run the nation's first integrated cotton mills. Its young women workers — the 'Lowell mill girls' — wrote the first chapters of American labor history.

    Industry & InventionTransportation
  3. 3

    Golden Spike — Promontory Summit

    Promontory, Utah

    Two railroads — one built east from California largely by Chinese laborers, the other west across the plains — joined rails at Promontory. The country could now be crossed in days instead of months.

    TransportationWestward Expansion