Шуйлкилл арнасы: Пенсильванияның тарихи су жолы

The Schuylkill Canal, or Schuylkill Navigation, was a system of interconnected canals and slack water pools along the Schuylkill River in the U. S. state of Pennsylvania, built as a commercial waterway in the early 19th century. Chartered in 1815, the navigation opened in 1825, to provide transportation and water power. At the time, the Schuylkill River was the least expensive and most efficient method of transporting bulk cargo, and cities on the U. S. East Coast were experiencing an energy crisis. It fostered the mining of anthracite coal as the major source of industry between Pottsville and eastern markets. Along the tow paths, mules pulled barges of coal from Port Carbon through the water gaps to Pottsville; locally to the port and markets of Philadelphia; and some then by ship or through additional New Jersey waterways, to New York City markets. The Schuylkill Canal was in operation until 1931 and was almost completely filled in the 1950s. Some remaining watered reaches are now used for recreation.

The Schuylkill Navigation Company was incorporated in 1815. An application for a charter to improve the Lehigh also was filed that year. These represented the growing impetus in the United States to develop a water transportation network similar to that emerging in Great Britain. The lower Lehigh Canal project made its first test shipments of coal in 1819, proving the Lehigh's locks concept. Its delivery in 1820 of over 365 tons of Anthracite to Philadelphia resulted in a temporary market glut. These and regularly increasing tonnages shipped down to Philadelphia's docks over the next 2–3 years attracted investors and speculators from all along the Eastern Seaboard to capitalize and fund similar companies. This began a deluge of private canal and canal resumption projects in the 1820s. The Delaware and Hudson Canal companies, the Delaware and Raritan Canal, the Morris Canal, the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal and various others followed, triggering the North American Canal Age and helping fuel the Industrial Revolution in America.

blockquote| while there was a total lack of highways or navigable streams leading to the region. Small quantities of coal were mined, but people were slow to appreciate its value, and it required vigorous exertions to induce them to attempt to use it. Its very appearance was against it, and the majority of persons approached were entirely incredulous as to its being anything else than a stone, incapable of being burned by any inherent qualities it possessed. Not only the coal but the fact that it was coal had to be discovered. Even as late as the year 1812, when it was sought to secure an act authorizing the improvement of the Schuylkill river in order to convey coal to Philadelphia, the representative of Schuylkill County in the state senate declared there was no coal in his district; that there was a kind of black stone that was called coal, but that it would not burn!|author=Fred Brenckman, History of Carbon County The Lehigh and Schuylkill canals had similar problems, both had to make navigable a series of rapids with rivers providing less water than was optimal—and ironically, by the 1820s, both eventually shipped coal from the opposite ends of the Little Schuylkill River's tributary, and the coal deposits once owned by Lehigh Coal Mine Company (the LCMC), in the Panther Creek Valley. Two years after this [1823] the Schuylkill region [coal mining] was opened, while it was not until 1829 that the coal trade of the Wyoming region [i. e., the Wyoming Valley] began.|author=Fred Brenckman, History of Carbon County When so provided, it burns very hot, clean and odorless, so today is still a favored fuel by specialty bakers. The Auburn Tunnel, a 450 foot (137 m) bore through a hill near Auburn, was completed in 1821, but by 1857, due to increased traffic, canal capacity (widening) modifications turned it into an open cut. Like the later Delaware Canal was to the Lehigh, the Union Canal, built between 1821 and 1828, was purpose designed to connect the Susquehanna River with the Schuylkill Canal at Reading. When completed, the two canals combined to make a water link between Philadelphia and the slack water level of the Susquehanna River at Middletown. This route along the Schuylkill Valley was envisioned primarily as a coal road, whilst the Union Canal was engineered for cross state passenger and cargoes; but it also competed with and then became secondary to the east–west divisions of the Pennsylvania Canal System on the Main Line of Public Works between Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Pittsburgh. The Schuylkill Canal also featured the first transportation tunnel in America. By transporting bulk cargoes and provide water power, the Schuylkill Navigation transformed the towns of Reading, Norristown, and Pottsville into early manufacturing centers. By using the Delaware River and the Delaware and Raritan and Morris Canals, manufactured products and anthracite from the Schuylkill Valley could also reach New York Harbor. The Schuylkill Navigation system quickly assumed a monopoly position in the transportation of anthracite coal from the coal mines of Schuylkill County to Philadelphia, and by 1841, was annually transporting over 737,517 tons of cargo.

In 1841, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad opened, and within four years, was hauling three times as much anthracite to Philadelphia each year as the Schuylkill Navigation. In response, the Schuylkill Navigation Company enlarged its canals; by 1847, they could accommodate the passage of boats carrying 230 tons of coal. These barges were better than twice the size that could be used on the rival Lehigh and Delaware Canals with the latter's limited lock lengths; an amount comparable to the Lehigh Canal's 1855 peak of 2,300,000 tons of coal. by the competing Pennsylvania Railroad—in a blatant act supporting a bid for monopoly, soon Schuylkill boats were denied access to this important New Jersey waterway. As a result, traffic on the Schuylkill decreased rapidly. Adding insult to injury, the PRR itself invaded the Schuylkill's territory with the construction of its Schuylkill Branch in the mid 1880s. By 1890 only 144,994 tons of cargo passed through the Schuylkill Navigation. The Schuylkill Navigation was also hindered by coal silt deposits that made its upper sections almost unusable. By 1891 the portion of Navigation above Port Clinton was abandoned. By 1904 the anthracite traffic had almost completely ceased, and after 1913 only an occasional cargo passed between Port Clinton and Philadelphia. Excursion vessels and pleasure boating remained active on the Schuylkill Navigation until most of the canals were filled by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania during 1947–1979 in efforts to remove coal silt from the Schuylkill River.

The Chester County Canal, also known as the Phoenixville Branch Canal, was an addition to the Navigation built by the Schuylkill Navigation Company in 1828 to provide water power to a new nail works in Phoenixville. The new canal connected the slackwater pool of the Schuylkill Canal above the Black Rock Dam to Phoenixville. This canal paralleled the top end of the Oakes Reach, on the opposite side or the river. While the Chester County Canal was initially built to provide water power to the mill, in 1847 it carried scheduled passenger service between Phoenixville and Norristown. The spring freshet of 1869 destroyed the mill "and very much injured the canal and its locks."

While many of the dams still stand, few watered stretches of the canal remain. Some 2.5 mile (4 km) of the original 3.5 mile (6 km) long Oakes Reach between Oaks and Mont Clare and the 1 mile (2 km) reach in Manayunk. Ruins and remnants of the canals structure are still visible along its length. Many of the locks chambers still exist but are buried to varying degrees. Some of the locktender's houses still exist. Even if filled in, the canal's presence in many river communities is remembered by several Canal Streets. Leesport has a restored Locktender's house on E. Wall Street. The adjacent lock had long been filled with a car wash located on the site, but in 2011, the lock car wash was removed, and the lock unearthed. Near Gibraltar, the Allegheny Creek Aqueduct still exists along with a drained section of the canal prism. The Aqueduct is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Schuylkill River Trail (SRT) now overlays portions of the canal route. In Manayunk, the Trail was constructed across the canal from the towpath. (The Reading railroad built a freight spur on the canal towpath.) In 2008 the extension of the Schuylkill River Trail from the Perkiomen Creek to Longford Road in Oaks opened. This length of the Trail makes use of the general course of the filled portion of the Oakes Reach and originally used the old canal aqueduct to cross Crossman's Run. On 14 February 2008, a meeting was held to announce the survey work for the extension of the Schuylkill River Trail along the towpath of the watered portion of the Oakes Reach. It was expected that the towpath restoration itself would commence around March 2009. Restoration of the canal towpath between Longford Road and Mont Clare is now complete. However, this one mile long segment of Schuylkill River Trail is a narrow crushed stone path, designed for pedestrians and slower bicycles. Cyclists who prefer higher speeds are encouraged to ride on parallel Walnut Street, rather than the Longford Road to Mont Clare section of tow path.