Around 1800 a series of canals were built from the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg to Pittsburgh via Johnstown. Heres a scan of the central section of an 1830 Pittsburgh city map showing the canal location in Allegheny and Pittsburgh. The canal ran southwest along the North Side of the Allegheny River. There were locks west of Sandusky St. where the canal connected to the Allegheny River, and east of Sandusky St. (near the present railroad bridge at 11th St. downtown) a branch of the canal was on a bridge over the Allegheny River. Downtown, that branch went south through a tunnel under the present U.S.Steel Building, and emerged near Try St. and the present Blvd. of the Allies, where locks connected the canal to the Monongahela River. Also attached is a photo I took along Grant St. looking east in early 1968 as excavation for the U.S. Steel Bldg. started. The tunnel to the left is the 1830 canal tunnel, and the tunnel to the right is the later railroad tunnel now used by the T. As construction of the USS building progressed, the canal tunnel was covered up, never to be seen again.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 18:34:21 +0000
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