Manayunk Canal Bicentennial 2019

LAST WEEKEND for the canal exhibition, Fairmount Water Works. Fri-Sat 10-5, Sun 1-5.

Happy Spring! Here are your Canal Bicentennial Events for the season: Exhibition, Video Reception, and Tour. These are all at the Fairmount Water Works.

TOMORROW Saturday it’s Toll Day at Lock 69/70, short tours at 9:15 and 11:15. Just show up!

Thank you to everybody who came out to Venice Island last night, sharing insights about the past, present, and future of the canal, and enjoying food and libations at the Manayunk Brewing Company afterwards. A great crowd! Hope to see some of you Saturday for short tours of Locks 69/70 at 9;15 and 11:15

Good morning Canallers! We have a lot of buzz going around Wednesday's speaker's forum at VI-PARC. Come a little early, seating is limited. There are six handicap seats, so if you need one reserved, send us a message. Parking (fee) in the lot next to the building.

Our speaker's forum is next Wednesday at VI-PARC and our exhibition is up at the Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center starting March 17. (The reception for that is May 2, hang in there.) And don't forget the Lock-to-Lock Fun Run with Manayunk Beer Runners on Saturday the 16th! Rain, Snow,or Shine!

So glad the Manayunk Canal is still with us, but we mourn the loss of the Fairmount Canal six miles downriver. Here is an engraving done the year it opened,1824. Maybe the steamboat is full of celebrants! Image courtesy of PWD Archives.

Have you seen this view from the Schuylkill River Trail out near Shawmont? It's Lock 68 of the Schuylkill Navigation. The Manayunk Canal is the only section of the entire 108-mile Navigation that still has intact lock chambers at both ends. No wooden gates left, though.

Great lineup of Speakers for next Wednesday's Bicentennial Forum at VI-PARC! Come hear how the Canal was saved from expressways and parking lots in the 1970s. Many of the canal saviors will be in attendance! This picture shows stabilizing work being done on Lock 69/70 in 1978 or 1979.

The Sluice House at Lock 68 burned in 1973. That would explain why it doesn't have any roof today, and the walls are collapsing. Photo courtesy Adam Levine/PWD.

We are finalizing several events for the Bicentennial. Save the Date Wednesday March 13 at 6 PM at Venice Island for a forum, Two Hundred Years of Water: The Past, Present, and Future of the Manayunk Canal. We'll talk some history, and experts from PWD will present the exciting project up at Lock 68!

Love these 1827 engineer's maps (courtesy Schuylkill Navigation Company MG-110 collection at the PA State Archives). These show Flat Rock Dam and old guard lock, and the outlet locks on the Manayunk Canal with its original four chambers. The red line is the towpath.

Check out this plan detail from 1875 that shows Main Street continuing onto Venice Island. Canal at top of image, river at bottom. Fountain Street is on the left. (Map from the collection of the State Archives in Harrisburg, MG 110, photograph by Sandy Sorlien.)

Two hundred years ago this month, the newly-completed Manayunk Canal was probably frozen. The "spring boating season" will open March 15, 1819!

Part of our Bicentennial celebration will be reporting on the Present and Future of the Canal. Here's some grant news from the Friends of Pretzel Park.
http://www.friendsofpretzelpark.org/announcement-of-grant-for-the-manayunk-section-of-the-canal/

Announcement of grant for the Manayunk section of the Canal | Friends of Pretzel Park Announcement of grant for the Manayunk section of the Canal – AND a Request of interest in the continuation of participation in planning for the trail – And Involvement, support- of the Historic District criteria for Manayunk At the November Manayunk Neighborhood Council Board meeting, the Board...

Here's a canal bicentennial event we're sad about: This week there was a fire at Paperworks, which was almost 200 years old when it closed in 2017. It would be nice to preserve some of the industrial buildings when this site gets redeveloped.
https://www.phillyvoice.com/two-alarm-fire-hits-historic-manayunk-roxborough-warehouse-paperworks-philadelphia-mill/

Two-alarm fire damages historic Manayunk warehouse PaperWorks Philadelphia Mill has been vacant since 2017

Bicentennial Factoid #1: "Fifteen locks [on the Schuylkill Navigation] were completed by early 1819. The tolls set for the outlet of the Flat Rock Canal and at the Falls of the Schuylkill were twenty cents per ton on coal and stone, forty four cents per ton on all other classes of freight, and six and a quarter cents per lock on pleasure boats." - Edward J. Gibbons, historian

Happy New Year! Stay tuned for educational tidbits and event details on our canal celebration March 13-16. Thanks for liking this page!