Jul 7
The Portage Canal is shut down.
December
The Canadian Parliament passes the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority
Act.
Demoltion of the Aluminum Company of America plant on Niagara Falls, New York's Hydraulic Canal is begun.
May 15
Four crewmen are killed when a freighter and a tanker collide
in the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.
Demoltion of the Aluminum Company of America plant is completed. ** The Amsterdam-Rhine Canal opens.
May
The U. S. Congress passes the Wiley-Dondero Act, establishing
the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation, to build a 27-foot
channel around the international rapids.
A modernization of locks on the Ohio River is begun, to accommodate
longer barge tows.
Jul 26
Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal.
Sep 21
The Canal Users' Association is founded, in London.
Oct 30
Britain bombs Egyptian airfields.
Nov 6
A British armada arrives at the north end of the canal.
Jan 4
The Suez Canal is reopened enough to permit medium-sized ships
through.
Mar 5
Egypt's Gamel Nasser bars Israel from the use of the Suez Canal.
Apr 10
A passenger ship transits the Suez Canal - the first since last
fall.
Apr 19
Great Britain pays its first toll for use of the Suez Canal.
May 22
The U. S. S. McGowan is the first military ship to use
the reopened Suez Canal.
Brooklyn's Erie Basin is taken over by the Port Authority of New
York.
Apr 25
The St. Lawrence Seaway opens for traffic.
June
Queen Elizabeth and President Eisenhower officially dedicate the
St. Lawrence Seaway. ** A new lock is added to Wilson Dam on the
Tennessee River.
Extensive improvements on the Sensée are begun.
A new dam and lock are built on Tennessee's Clinch River.
The Potomac Heritage Trail opens, along the former route of the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. ** England's restored Lower Avon Canal
reopens.
Erie Canal
Marvin A. Rapp's Canal Water and Whiskey.
The Soo Canal's Poe Lock is replaced by the New Poe Lock.
Jul 16
The Georges River Canal System is placed on the State of Maine
Register of Historic Sites.
The Canal Society of New Jersey is founded.
Mar 10
The Georges River Canal System is placed on the National Register
of Historic Sites.
Boatman and author Richard Garrity retires after a lifetime working on the Erie Canal.
The Soo Canal reports 91.5 million tons of shipping passing through
the U. S. Locks during the year, 1.5 million through the Canadian.
December
Construction begins on the Tenn-Tom Waterway.
A break at Bushnell Basin, southeast of Rochester, destroys a
home and damages forty others. ** New Jersey creates the Delaware
and Raritan Canal State Park.
The Canal Society of New Jersey opens the Canal Museum at
Waterloo.
July
President Reagan signs an appropriations bill to complete the
Tenn-Tom Waterway.
December
The Tenn-Tom Waterway is completed.
January
The 234-mile Tenn-Tom Waterway, connecting the Tennessee River's
Pickwick Lake with the Tombigbee River at Demopolis, Alabama,
opens to traffic.
Jun 1
The Tenn-Tom Waterway is officially dedicated.
A Navy F-4 Phantom jet is transported to a Schenectady museum
by barge, the end of a long period of commercial shipping via
the Erie Canal.
Jun 2
A historic plaque, sponsored by the New York State Canal Society,
is placed at Buffalo's harbor on the Niagara River, to commemorate
the city as the Erie Canal's western terminus.
April 27
A historic plaque, sponsored by the New York State Canal Society,
is placed at Albany's harbor on the Hudson River, to commemorate
the city as the Erie Canal's eastern terminus.
May 2
A historic plaque, sponsored by the New York State Canal Society,
is placed at Sylvan Beach on the eastern end of Oneida Lake.
Jun 24
Justin Dunn, 6, of Albion, falls into the Erie Canal near his
home and drowns.
New York
Erie Canal Historian Marvin Rapp dies, in his mid-eighties.
© 2000 David Minor/Eagles Byte