Two hundred years ago, Pennsylvania lawmakers arrived at the Capitol in a state of panic.

Pennsylvania’s economic standing was jeopardized by the opening of the Erie Canal across New York State in the fall of 1825.

A new transportation route linking the Atlantic seaboard with the Great West opened up. Only it went from New York City to Buffalo on Lake Erie.

Erie Canal shipping was suddenly taking trade away from merchants in Philadelphia doing business with Pittsburgh. The trade exchanged manufactured items for lumber and minerals. Philadelphia financial institutions faced bankruptcy as trade diverted to the Erie Canal.

What to do?

Pennsylvania lawmakers responded by authorizing construction of the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal between Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh on Feb. 26, 1826.

The Main Line Canal crossed the Allegheny Mountain barrier dividing Pennsylvania by using the Juniata River.

The Main Line Canal was one of the most audacious public works projects in Pennsylvania. The decade-long construction involved building miles of water-filled canal, locks, lockhouses, culverts and aqueducts.

The Allegheny Portage Railroad opened in 1834 as an engineering marvel of its time. The railroad hauled canal boat sections, passengers and goods up an inclined plane over the top of the Alleghenies.

In 1842, English author Charles Dickens described the portage experience: “Occasionally, the rails are laid upon the extreme verges of a giddy precipice; and looking from the carriage window, the traveler gazes sheer down, without a stone or scrap of fence between, into the mountain depths below.”

The Main Line Canal enjoyed a 30-year heyday until it was mostly replaced by the privately owned Pennsylvania Railroad in the 1850s.

Canal heritage tour

The canal is not forgotten.

The Juniata River Valley Visitors Bureau and other regional associations have published the Juniata River canal driving trail to promote heritage tourism.

The 125-mile scenic tour along Route 22 features stops at antebellum taverns, remnants of locks and aqueducts, lockhouses, community parks with canal murals and rides at a watered stretch of the canal at Lewistown. The route runs from the Clarks Ferry Tavern in Duncannon to Portage in Cambria County.

At the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic site in Gallitzin, the National Park Service preserves the Engine House, the 1832 Lemon House showing 19th century hospitality and traces of the inclined plane.

“It’s a great story to tell,” said Jenny Barron Landis, visitors bureau executive director about the Main Line Canal. “It was the answer to the Erie Canal.”

The driving tour will launch March 21 at the Clarks Ferry Tavern undergoing restoration.

Canal debate

When the General Assembly authorized the Main Line Canal in 1826 obviously no one was thinking about heritage tourism.

Smaller canals were already operating in eastern Pennsylvania and along sections of the Susquehanna River.

But the Main Line Canal involved creating a Board of Canal Commissioners, state borrowing and hiring engineers.

Lawmakers debated the project’s cost, route and whether their districts benefited. Some lawmakers in districts far from the canal tied their vote to local projects.

Such transportation debates occur today in Harrisburg, as well.

Gov. John Andrew Schultz broke ground for the canal on July 4, 1826, in Harrisburg.