Page 14 - 14 Wabash County Visitors Guide

Canal was major

factor in developing
Wabash County

By Joseph Slacian

The Wabash and Erie Canal, though short-lived, played a great role in helping develop Wabash
and much of Indiana in the early 19th century. The U.S. Congress provided a land grant to the
State of Indiana to create the canal. Work on the canal began in Fort Wayne in 1832 and was
finished in Evansville in 1853. By 1870, the railroad made its mark and four years later the canal
system was abandoned totally. However, today there are still traces of it that can be found in
Wabash County.

Surveyed in 1818, the canal July 4, 1837, various histories are and Richvalley, near the Norfolk
was one of the major reasons that conflicting on the exact day, that and Southern underpass on old U.S.
Indiana became a state. To obtain the canal boat Indiana, captained 24. The second, the Kerr Lock, is
the land for the canal, the 1826 by Dana Columbia, was the first in Lagro and is still visible today. A
Treaty of Paradise Spring was to reach Wabash. It was followed third, located in Wabash, vanished
signed. Today, the ground at which shortly later by the Prairie Hen. in the 1940s when it was filled in.
the treaty was signed is the Paradise
Spring Historical Park, located at The canal reached Peru in 1837 The lock system was important to
the intersection of Market and Allen and either that year or in 1838 -- the canals. A boat captain signaled
streets. The park includes walkways again, historical reports conflict the lock tender that the vessel was
and a trail that leads along the -- reached Logansport. It was in approaching by blowing either a
Wabash River, which was the main Logansport where a turning basin tin or brass horn. The lock gates
route during the canal days. was constructed, allowing the were controlled by 10-inch timbers
canal boats to turn around and that were 20-feet long. The gates
Early on, it wasn’t sure if the canal continue back the way it came. An were opened by hand, and from
would indeed pass through Wabash aqueduct across the Eel River was time to time boat passengers and
County. Officials from Ohio wanted constructed in 1840, and the canal crew members needed to help push
the canal to run south of Cincinnati. reached past Lafayette by 1847. against an 11-foot head of water at
A compromise was reached, and Twenty-one years after the first the gates.
ground on the canal was broken shovel for the canal was turned
on Feb. 22, 1832 in Fort Wayne. A in Fort Wayne, it reached its final The locks were wide enough for
six-mile stretch of the canal was destination in Evansville. According one boat to pass through at a time.
finished by June 1834 and later to legend, the year the canal reached Eastbound boats had the right-of-
that year, contracts for a stretch in Evansville, the railroad -- which way, as they were traveling with the
Wabash County was let. By July 4, quickly marked the canal system’s current. When two boats met along
1835, the canal stretched from Fort demise -- reached that city as well. the canal, the westbound boat would
Wayne to Huntington, connecting stop and the horse or mule team
the Maumee and Wabash rivers. There is a record of three locks would move to the outside of the tow
having been built in Wabash County. path, causing the boat to drift to the
It was either on July 4, 1836, or opposite side of the canal until the
One is located between Wabash

14 | WABASH COUNTY GUIDE