Union Canal (Pennsylvania)

Union Canal
Map of historic Pennsylvania canals and connecting railroads
Specifications
Locks	93
Status	Abandoned except for historic interest
History
Original owner	Union Canal Company
Principal engineer	Canvass White
Construction began	1792
Date completed	1828
Date closed	1881
Geography
Start point	Reading
End point	Middletown
Branch(es)	Pine Grove Feeder
Connects to	Schuylkill Canal, Pennsylvania Canal (Eastern Division)

Union Canal Tunnel
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
Pennsylvania state historical marker
South entrance
Show map of Pennsylvania Show map of the US
Nearest city	Lebanon, Pennsylvania
Coordinates	40°21′01″N 76°27′13″W / 40.35028°N 76.45361°W / 40.35028; -76.45361
Built	1826
Architect	Canvass White, John B. Ives
NRHP Reference #	74001792
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	October 1, 1974
Designated NHL	April 19, 1994
Designated PHMC	March 01, 1948 and April 01, 1950

The Union Canal was a towpath canal that existed in southeastern Pennsylvania in the United States during the 19th century. First proposed in 1690 to connect Philadelphia with the Susquehanna River, it ran approximately 82 mi from Middletown on the Susquehanna below Harrisburg to Reading on the Schuylkill River.

Construction began in 1792 during the George Washington Administration, but financial difficulties delayed its completion until 1828. Called the "Golden Link," it provided a critical early transportation route for shipping anthracite coal and lumber eastward to Philadelphia. Closed in the 1880s, remnants of the canal remain, most notably the Union Canal Tunnel, a hand-built engineering marvel that is the oldest existing transportation tunnel in the United States. The tunnel is a National Historic Landmark.

A canal linking the Susquehanna and Delaware valleys in southeastern Pennsylvania was first proposed in 1690 by William Penn, the founder of the Pennsylvania Colony. Nearly a century passed before a route for the canal was surveyed by David Rittenhouse and William Smith between 1762 and 1770, the first canal ever surveyed in the U.S. Spurred by the 1791 discovery of anthracite in the upper Susquehanna Valley, the Pennsylvania General Assembly chartered two companies to undertake the project: the Schuylkill and Susquehanna Canal Company and the Delaware and Schuylkill Canal Company. At the time of the initial construction in the early 1790s, Philadelphia was involved in an intense rivalry with Baltimore for the supremacy as a shipping port. The canal was backed by Philadelphia businessmen as a means to divert commercial traffic from following the Susquehanna downriver to the Chesapeake Bay, its more natural destination.