Here in the Northeatern USA, you can see old canals all around. The US embarked upon a program of canal construction in the 1790’s and 1800’s-this continued p till the railroads replaced canals (as the fastest way to ship freight).
My question: did the firms that built the canals recover their investment? When the railroads came along, they put the canal companies out of business.
I recall reading that the Worcester-Providence (RI) canal was completed about 1845-and it ceased operations only a few years later, when the rail line opened.
Were some canals still in se, into the 1900’s?
Don’t know about profitability, but some were even expanded in the 20th century.
The Erie Barge Canal and three of its distributary canals (Oswego, Champlain, and Cayuga) remain in operation today. By and large, however, it has turned more into a recreationway and historic site than a commercial transportation unit.
The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal continued operations until 1924. It’s now a national historical park.
Yes.
The Erie Canal was used heavily until the 1950s. In fact, it underwent a major expansion in the early 1900s, and was the major source of shipping between New York City and the midwest until the St Lawrence seaway opened.
ETA: Were many canals privately owned? The Erie Canal was paid for by the state, and while I have no idea if it generated profit in the sense of cash revenue, it brought a flood of settlers to western New York, and helped drive millions of dollars worth of goods through the port of New York.
in high school we were told that the success of Erie Canal led to a canal construction bubble, with both government and private funds. So chances are that some of that bubble investment flopped. All the more so with public investment in “canals to nowhere” type of projects.
In the Chicago area, the Cal-Sag Channel and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal are both still used by barge traffic. The latter is the only (water) shipping link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River system.
Legal proceedings are currently underway to close the latter, as the state of Michigan fears that it may prove to be a route for Asian carp (an invasive species) to enter the Great Lakes.
I’ve sailed through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal several times.
ASIAN carp, how racist, I bet if they were Caucasian carp no one would care 
We already have those in the Great Lakes. It’s the damn illegal dry-backs we want to keep out. :D:D:D
In England the canal companies were generally bought by the railway companies to eliminate competition, which may have helped recoup capital costs.
So why doesn’t Obama do something about it? Damned illegal aliens; the Greater Great Lakes Association Inc should consult with Arizona and agitate for the passage of laws requiring local fishermen to demand proof of national origin and proof of rights of residence in the USA. Send your donations to me; I’ll see to it that steps are taken.
In one of his history books, Bill Bryson suggests that the canals remained economically viable for longer than one might expect because the railroads initially had to rely upon cast iron for the rails. As an industrial material, cast iron performed sufficiently poorly and unreliably as to retard the growth of the railroads until the rise of the steel industry.
Canals were expensive to build, and most earned a relatively low or negative return. The Erie Canal was an exception, because (a) it was completed early, giving it a bigger jump on railroads; and (b) it satisfied such an immense demand, for shipping between the Great Lakes and the eastern seaboard.
State and local governments accounted for about 3/4 of Nineteenth Century canal investment. The remainder was private.
Even after railroads were built, canals didn’t go out of business. Canals are a high-fixed-cost, low-variable-cost business; once built they were cheap to operate and could make an operating profit even on relatively modest traffic. They just couldn’t earn enough return on the huge initial investment.
As noted a few canals survived and prospered, although the Chicago S&S Canal has the secondary purpose of carrying sewage away from Chicago.
Generally, no they did not recover their investment. The main canals in NY were probably the most successful but their minor canals such as the Black River Canal would not have been.
Ohio started building theirs at the time that NY opened theirs and were instrumental in opening up the interior but again they took a beating. Many of their lateral canals went under early. both the major canals connected Lake Erie with the Ohio River but the river connections were almost instantly abandoned because of silting. The Cincinnati connection was abandoned early despite the fact that it came right down to the main waterfront of the city. It was simpler to just unload the boats and move them 1/4 mile to the river. There was an attempt to mechanize the western side of the state with an “electric mule” rail tug but that was only built between Cincinnati to Dayton. It died almost immediately and may have been built as a hedge against the canal by building an interurban line on the canal right of way. The 1913 flood virtually destroyed the canals in Ohio and more or less put to bed plans to enlarge the western side to a barge canal like NY. It would have been a major upgrade to enlarge it because the Western side suffered greatly from water shortages at the summit despite a series of lakes developed to feed it.
Indiana started later than Ohio and it bankrupt the state. Most of their locks in the middle to upper section were made of wood which tells you how little money and local resources were available. They connected one of their canals to Lake Erie via a shared Ohio Canal and also connected to Cincinnati on a lateral canal. It was all too little too late.
Pennsylvania had a number of canals but they had to move them over mountains which required a railroad incline to haul the boats over. You can imagine the profit margin needed to operate that system.
Wisconsin had their share of canals which opened up the interior to the Great Lakes for farming and paper industries.
Illinois canals also fed into the great lakes as well as the ever growing Chicago metropolis.
All the canals helped the mid-Western states grow but as financial instruments they were poor investments.
I’d disagree about being cheap to operate because they were maintenance hogs. They had to be dredged of silt and the banks required constant attention due to flooding and groundhog damage. The locks and aqueducts were constantly worked to keep them structurally sound and they replaced them after about 75 years.