The Canal

This painting is on the side of a building. It just caught my eye.

The canal system worked it's way from the east to Pittsburgh. From Johnstown to Pittsburgh it was 105 miles of canal that was 4 feet deep. It opened up the Frontier. The interesting part of the canal system was between Holidaysburg to Cresson to Johnstown. Big mountain to cross. So they built an incline system. The canal boats were put onto a flat bed with wheels and pulled up the mountain to various stages. When hiking you can find the remains of the old incline. Today the National Park Service has a site in Cresson, where they have rebuilt one of the incline stages. By 1857 the railroad had come, and the system died.