Canals, Rivers, Roads, and Railroads...

USS ALASKA

Captain
Joined
Mar 16, 2016
Sorry, I'm British, place is lousy with canals. Canal/navigable river map, then.

map-of-canals-in-us-1820-1860-transportation.jpg


http://cdoovision.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/map-of-canals-in-us-1820-1860-transportation.jpg

us-canals.jpg


http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/19-century/us-canals.jpg

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
Interesting, thanks. By the looks of things the "roads" are the main roads.

It's interesting to see how in the North the canals were much more extensive, probably because of a relative lack of navigable rivers.
 
There is an excellent map in Fishlow's 'American Railroads and the Transformation of the Ante-bellum Economy'. Map #1 between pages 30 and 31 shows the 'Ante-Bellum Transport System' of canals, waterways, and railroads. Where there is more than one system competing against another it is represented by a heavy dark line. The North has many heavy dark interconnected competitive routes, mainly running East - West, and many stand-alone methods of transpo. The South has fewer competitive lines and almost all, (distance wise), run North - South.

Wish I could post it here but can't find an electronic version of it...

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
Very cool zoomable map...

https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3700.rr000170/?r=-0.551,-0.019,2.102,0.902,0

Disturnell's new map of the United States and Canada showing all the canals, rail roads, telegraph lines and principal stage routes. 1851

Title; Disturnell's new map of the United States and Canada showing all the canals, rail roads, telegraph lines and principal stage routes.

Summary; Map of the eastern half of the United States showing relief by hachures, drainage, major cities and towns, canals, roads, telegraph lines, railroads, and unfinished railroads. [From published bibliography]

Contributor Names; Burr, Henry A., Disturnell, John, 1801-1877.

Created / Published; New York, J. Disturnell, 1851.

Subject Headings; States--Maps, Railroads--United States--Maps

Call Number/Physical Location; G3700 1851 .B8

Repository; Library of Congress Geography and Map Division Washington, D.C. 20540-4650 USA dcu

Digital Id; http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3700.rr000170

Library of Congress Control Number; gm70005366
1395

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
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The traces of those canals are still around, at least in Ohio... in a couple of places along the Miami & Erie in the western part of the state you can still ride on a (reproduction) canal boat pulled by a (real) mule, like near Piqua and at New Bremen. You may also notice towns called "Canal Fulton," "Canal Winchester," "Lock Two," and my favorite, "Lockington."

Where I used to live, in Minster, the canal went right through town... my favorite bar had once been one of the canal boat stops. (The door on that side was boarded up to keep the drunks from falling into the canal.) (I don't know that anyone ever actually did that, but that's what we always said.)
 
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