Howard Greninger has an article for the Terre Haute Trib Star about timbers from the Wabash Erie Canal that were discovered submerged in a local lake and are being studied. Vigo County is hoping to use them in an educational park display but have to figure out how to do it without the timbers deteriorating – the water apparently helped preserve them.
The canal was open to Terre Haute by 1847. The culvert, which the timbers supported, was built around 1850. Some timbers for the platform are 20 inches wide.
Don Burden, architectural historian for Gray & Pipe, a member of the White Water Canal Trail Inc., in 2007 estimated that the trees used for the culvert were already 300 or more years old when they were cut for the canal.
Historical engineering documents showed the site was for culvert No. 151 of the Wabash and Erie Canal.
The Wabash and Erie Canal linked the Great Lakes to the Ohio river via artificial waterway. It was part of the Indiana Mammoth Internal Improvement Act that, in conjunction with the Panic of 1837, pretty well ruined Indiana’s finances. According to Wikipedia, however, the Wabash and Erie was the most successful of the canal projects in the state, though never to the extent anticipated.
Ruined Indiana’s finances? Come on! You mean, provided jobs!
Certainly there’s no lesson to be learned regarding outdated modes of transportation, Amtrak, etc.
They were trying to build a lot of roads too, as I recall. So the financial impact didn’t depend entirely on the viability of the mode of transportation.
Actually, as I was writing that yesterday, I thought it taught us some lessons about the value of financial regulations since Panics are fewer and further between.
All that is outmoded about Amtrack is the speed of the trains.
The Swedes built the Vasa in the 1600’s, which turned out to be too big and promptly sunk into the fresh water in the bay. A few years ago, they brought it up from the bottom, totally intact, but knowing that the timbers would be vulnerable, as the water drained from them, it was promptly replaced by a kind of polyurethane. Now, what is a plastic boat, the Vasa is on display in Stockholm.
The Vasa, like the Wabash and Erie Canal and some of the other brainstorms by Indiana “leaders” have strong similarities. They are more effective as museum pieces.
The finances of Indiana have always been weak. Many early territorial leaders did not want to become a state when we did because there were not enough people paying taxes to support a state government. They lost the argument, and we’ve limped along ever since.
The canal’s main contribution was the new (current) constitution which weakened the executive branch of the government and turned everything over to the Gen. Ass., which has been soaked nearly as long as those timbers.