Two hundreds years ago, New York legislators authorized a commission to
survey the exact route of the Erie Canal that would link the Hudson
River in Albany and Lake Erie in Buffalo. When it opened in 1825, the
360-mile ribbon of water not only proved to be an engineering marvel, it
changed the course of American history in eight ways. Prior to the construction of the Erie Canal, most of the United States
population remained pinned between the Atlantic Ocean to the east and
the Appalachian Mountains to the west. By providing a direct water route
to the Midwest, the canal triggered large-scale emigration to the
sparsely populated frontiers of western New York, Ohio, Indiana,
Michigan and Illinois.
Before the opening of the Erie Canal, New Orleans had been the only port
city with an all-water route to the interior of the United States, and
the few settlers in the Midwest had arrived mostly from the South.
