The Amazing Impossible Erie Canal
Publisher’s Summary: When De Witt Clinton, a young politician, first dreamed of building a canal to connect the Hudson River with the Great Lakes, folks didn’t believe such a thing could be done. Clinton wanted to link east coast ports to the frontier, and from the groundbreaking ceremony on the Fourth of July in 1817, Clinton never gave up—even as people called his project “Clinton’s Ditch.”
Eight long years later, he’d realized his vision at last and constructed the longest uninterrupted canal in history—allowing water travel from the American prairie all the way to Europe!
Possible Topics: Westward Expansion, Environment, Economy, Geography, Community, Transportation, Change over Time
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