Pennsylvania Canal in Pittsburgh

Pennsylvania Canal in Pittsburgh. . The Pennsylvania Canal was Pittsburgh's most important transportation system until the 1850s when railroads began to replace the old canal system. Irish workers dug the canal across the state from the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg to the Monongahela River., When packet boats moved into the canal from the river, mules pulled the vessels through four canal locks to reach a spectacular tunnel built through Grant's Hill, where the courthouse stands today. Boats plunged into the dark tunnel and emerged near Liberty Avenue. This canal tunnel, one of the first built in the United States, was as impressive a structure as people in the 1830s had ever seen. Thirty-five years later, after the canal tunnel was abandoned, the Panhandle Railroad built a second tunnel near the abandoned canal tunnel., When the canal opened through Pittsburgh in 1831, a great ceremony was held on this site at Lock #1, known as the Washington Lock. This lock was constructed to join two famous canal systems, the Pennsylvania Canal and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C&O) coming from the Potomac River near Washington, D.C. The never made it this far north., Today, the Washington Lock is buried beneath the Parkway East., (captions) , Canal tunnel and adjacent railroad tunnel found as foundation for U.S. Steel Buildings is excavated. Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania , Packet boat pulled by mule through canal tunnel. Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania , Map of canal through Pittsburgh with tunnel locations and site of photograph indicated