25 for 25. Erie Canal (1817)

The United States was created in the 18th century by a revolution in politics. It grew to continental size in the 19th century by a revolution in transport. Not accidentally, the two revolutions shared a birthday. On July 4, 1817, construction began on the Erie Canal.

Since ancient times, people interested in moving freight had noticed that a draft animal can pull a great deal more weight than it can carry. A wagon on a smooth road demonstrates this. So also a barge on still water. The barge is better because the weight is supported by water rather than by wheels and axles.

Canals for transport were built in ancient China and the Middle East. The Romans built canals. Canals appeared in several countries of Europe in the late Middle Ages. Canals were easiest to build in flat land. A ditch would suffice, perhaps lined with clay. Modest engineering and mostly unskilled labor did the trick.

Uneven terrain posed a greater challenge. Dams and locks converted a canal into a stepped series of lakes. Building these water works required expertise and capital beyond the reach of private companies. Governments had to get involved.

George Washington hoped to involve the governments of Virginia and Maryland in constructing a canal from tidewater on the Potomac across the Appalachian mountains to the Ohio river system. It would make those two Atlantic states the gateway to the American interior. But the fact that two states were involved complicated the politics and frustrated Washington's plan.

DeWitt Clinton of New York thought his state should take the lead and the prize. The New York governor persuaded the state legislature to put up $7 million toward construction of a canal entirely within their state.

Envisioning that such a canal, from the Hudson River to Lake Erie, would signal a new beginning for America, not to mention New York's commercial independence from Philadelphia, America's current leading city, Clinton arranged for the groundbreaking to take place on Independence Day in 1817.

Construction went slowly at first. But as the crews learned their job, the pace picked up. Even so, not till 1825 did the first barges ply the new waterway. The effect was everything Clinton hoped for. Cargoes from the Ohio valley that previously had gone downstream to New Orleans and around Florida to the east coast now came through New York City. Shipping costs plunged, encouraging western settlement even as it knitted western farmers into the eastern economy.

This had political implications. So long as trans-Appalachian farmers had sent their cargoes west to market, those farmers had looked west for their political future. Thomas Jefferson wasn't the only person to wonder whether the union could hold together with a bifurcated economy. Jefferson lived just long enough to learn of the opening of the Erie Canal and to know that the economy was no longer bifurcated. If the union divided, it wouldn't be between east and west.

The success of the Erie Canal and its imitators ironically helped ensure their demise. The American economy grew dramatically in the decades after the canal opened. By the time railroads came along, there was a thick market awaiting the new efficiencies they could provide. Railroads were cheaper to build and they could go places where topography stymied even the most ingenious canal engineers.

The golden age of canals in America lasted scarcely a generation. But that golden age was the seed time of the economy that made America the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth.