4, 1826, and was opened to Duncan's Island, above Harrisburg, in 1830. This central section also extended across the Susquehanna and up the Juniata Valley; it was begun in 1827 and completed to Huntingdon in 1830 and Hollidaysburg in 1834. The western division of the canal extended from Pittsburg to Johnstown; it was begun in 1826 and opened in 1830.[1]
From Huntingdon on the east to Johnstown on the west of the mountains was planned the Allegheny Portage Railroad, which from any point of view must be considered one of the most interesting and remarkable of all attempts to abridge distance in our early history.
The history of the divisions of the Pennsylvania Canal on either side of the mountains is commonplace beside this interesting and daring bit of engineering. Inclined planes were not, at this time, a novelty, but their use as proposed now in the Alleghenies was
- ↑ For this and many additional items of information concerning the greater problem of Pennsylvania's entire system of canals, see Theodore B. Klein's monograph "The Canals of Pennsylvania and the System of Internal Improvements," Report Pennsylvania Secretary of Internal Improvements, 1900.
