The Pennsylvania Canal Tunnel was the

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

terminus of the

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

Main Line of Public Works The Main Line of Public Works was a package of legislation passed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1826 to establish a means of transporting freight between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. It funded the construction of various long-proposed can ...

, a transportation system that involved other early tunnels.

History

Construction was authorized February 8, 1827, and the tunnel was completed November 10, 1829. The canal crossed the

Allegheny River The Allegheny River ( ) is a long headwater stream of the Ohio River in western Pennsylvania and New York (state), New York. The Allegheny River runs from its headwaters just below the middle of Pennsylvania's northern border northwesterly into ...

on a

covered bridge A covered bridge is a timber-truss bridge with a roof, decking, and siding, which in most covered bridges create an almost complete enclosure. The purpose of the covering is to protect the wooden structural members from the weather. Uncovered woo ...

aqueduct, later replaced by

John A. Roebling John Augustus Roebling (born Johann August Röbling; June 12, 1806 – July 22, 1869) was a German-born American civil engineer. He designed and built wire rope suspension bridges, in particular the Brooklyn Bridge, which has been designated as ...

's first suspension bridge, the Allegheny Aqueduct., the canal traveled underground through most of downtown Pittsburgh, under Grant's Hill, to end in a lock leading to the

Monongahela River The Monongahela River ( , )—often referred to locally as the Mon ()—is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 river on the Allegheny Plateau in North Cen ...

. The original plan was to connect with the

C&O canal The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal and occasionally called the "Grand Old Ditch," operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River between Washington, D.C. and Cumberland, Maryland. It replaced the Potomac Canal, wh ...

at the Monongahela River, but that canal never reached its expected western end, and the tunnel's main use was to allow overflow from the canal to enter the Monongahela. Only one or two canal boats ever went through the tunnel and lock. The tunnel was made obsolete by the arrival of the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

in 1852. The canal tunnel was uncovered during the construction of the

U.S. Steel Tower The U.S. Steel Tower, also known as the Steel Building or USX Tower (1988–2001), is a 64-story skyscraper at 600 Grant Street in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The interior has of leasable space. Standing tall, it is the tallest buil ...

in 1967, and later during the construction of the subway system, which used part of the tunnel on the south side.

Photographs

Photo by Bob Rathke

Pennsylvania Digital Library photo

Photo at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's "The Digs" blog

External links

Tunnel information by the American Canal Society

Grant's Hill Tunnel
at philadelphiabuildings.org

References

{{Reflist * Pittsburgh Tribune-Review; January 13, 2008 Tunnels in Pittsburgh Tunnels completed in 1829 Canal tunnels in the United States Pennsylvania Canal Water transportation in Pennsylvania