Pennsylvania Main Line of Public Works

Main Line of Public Works
Map of historic Pennsylvania canals and connecting railroads
Specifications
Locks	168 (The Eastern Division Canal had 14 locks, the Juniata Division 86, and the Western Division 68.)
Maximum height above sea level	2,322 ft (708 m) (Summit of the Allegheny Portage Railroad through Blair Gap)
Status	Canals abandoned except for historic and recreational segments. Many railroad segments survive as part of the Keystone Corridor.
History
Original owner	Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Date of act	1826
Construction began	1828
Date completed	1834
Date closed	Sold to Pennsylvania Railroad in 1857; last canal segment, near Harrisburg, closed in 1901
Geography
Start point	Philadelphia
End point	Pittsburgh
Branch(es)	Wiconisco Canal, Kittanning Feeder, Allegheny Outlet
Branch of	Pennsylvania Canal
Connects to	Delaware River, Schuylkill Canal, Conestoga Navigation, Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal, Codorus Navigation, Union Canal, Susquehanna Division, Allegheny River, Monongahela River, Ohio River, Ashley Planes, Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad, Lehigh Canal & Delaware Canal

Pennsylvania Main Line Canal, Juniata Division, Canal Section
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Pennsylvania Main Line Canal, Juniata Division, April 2010
Location	1.5 mi. section of canal bet. PA RR Main Line and Juniata River, Granville Township, Pennsylvania
Area	13.6 acres (5.5 ha)
Built	1830
Built by	Clinton, DeWitt Jr.
Architect	Clinton, DeWitt Jr.
Architectural style	Other, Canal
NRHP Reference #	02000069
Added to NRHP	February 20, 2002

Western Division-Pennsylvania Canal
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Location	Along the Conemaugh River, Bolivar, Derry Township, and Fairfield Township
Area	15 acres (6.1 ha)
Built	1830
Built by	Pennsylvania Canal Commission
NRHP Reference #	74001817
Added to NRHP	September 17, 1974

Western Division of the PA Canal
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Location	Along the Conemaugh River, Bell, Derry, and Loyalhanna Townships
Area	15 acres (6.1 ha)
Built	1830
Built by	White, Canvas; Geddes, James
NRHP Reference #	82001537
Added to NRHP	November 14, 1982

The Main Line of Public Works was a package of legislation supporting a vision passed in 1826 — a collection of various long proposed canal and road projects that became a canal system (1824 proposals and studies) and later added railroads (amendments in 1828) designed to cross the breadth of Pennsylvania (mainly, southern) with the visionary goal of providing the best commercial means of transportation between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Built between 1826 and 1834 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, it established the Pennsylvania Canal System, the Allegheny Portage Railroad, and the Pennsylvania Canal System administrated under a new Commission.

Later amendments substituted a new technology, railroads in place of the 82 miles (132 km) canal that had been planned on the right-of-way of the substitute: the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad (P&CRR), a new technology, for an envisioned canal link connecting the Delaware River (Philadelphia) to the Susquehanna River that would have proved too costly.

Trans-Appalachian settlement had begun in earnest during the latter years of the French and Indian War (1754-1763, arguably a World War), and the British post-war Governments side agreements, primarily made with the Iroquois Confederacy caused the policy curbing expanded settlement in the colonial mid-west was one cause that created support for the American Revolution (a casus belli, and not just along the American frontiers for those hoping to emigrate into the nearly empty Amerindian lands of the Ohio Country, for the American families were prone to have large families, and Eastern seaboard populations were blooming in the pre-industrialized predominantly Agricultural culture).