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Photograph of a Typical Section of Completed Canal near Medina (1918).
New York State Archives, NYSA_A3045-78_Dn_Bc39
Document Description
The original Erie Canal, completed in 1825, was four feet deep and forty feet wide. By 1903, the Canal had been enlarged twice, once in 1836 and again in 1862. By 1918, the Barge Canal was 123 feet wide and twenty feet deep. Boats were no longer pulled by mules; they were self-propelled, or were pulled by tugboats.
