Economic history of the United States
The 325-mile Erie Canal, which connected Albany, New York, on the Hudson River with Buffalo, New York, on Lake Erie, began operation in 1825. Wagon cost from Buffalo to New York City in 1817 was 19.2 cents per ton-mile. By Erie Canal c. 1857 to 1860 the cost was 0.81 cents. The Erie Canal was a great commercial success and had a large regional economic impact.
Technological and industrial history of the United States
Like the turnpikes, the early canals were constructed, owned, and operated by private joint-stock companies but later gave way to larger projects funded by the states. The Erie Canal, proposed by Governor of New York De Witt Clinton, was the first canal project undertaken as a public good to be financed at the public risk through the issuance of bonds. When the project was completed in 1825, the canal linked Lake Erie with the Hudson River through 83 separate locks and over a distance of . The success of the Erie Canal spawned a boom of other canal-building around the country: over of artificial waterways were constructed between 1816 and 1840. Small towns like Syracuse, New York, Buffalo, New York, and Cleveland, Ohio that lay along major canal routes boomed into major industrial and trade centers, while canal-building pushed some states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana to the brink of bankruptcy.