The Story of Ohio’s Canals: An Engineering Endeavor That Can Still Be Traced in Ohio’s Landscape

Featuring Tom O’Grady, surveyor, student and researcher of Ohio History, and Instructor of Observational Astronomy at Ohio University.

Co-sponsored by the Ohio Humanities Council Speakers Bureau

Wednesday, November 6, 7:30 p.m.

Beginning in 1825, Ohio began constructing its canal system that eventually included nearly a thousand miles of channel and towpaths laced with stone locks and culverts, aqueducts, feeder lakes and slack water ponds. These canals opened up Ohio to world commerce allowing the export of surplus grains and manufactured goods and the import of items made in New York, London and Paris. Ohio’s canals linked the Great Lakes with the Ohio River and Ohio towns with markets in Chicago, Buffalo, New York City, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and New Orleans. Canal builders negotiated Ohio’s diverse landscape as they traversed glacial moraines and the Allegheny Plateau. The ‘big ditch’ stitched the settlements of Ohio’s wilderness together and helped make it a player on the world’s stage. Please don’t miss Tom O’Grady’s compelling talk on this fascinating chapter of Ohio’s History