Pennsylvania Mainline Canal Aqueduct - Indiana County, PA - Ancient Aqueducts on Waymarking.com

The West Penn Trail has parking nearby, with picnic and rest facilities.

The Pennsylvania Main Line Canal provided a route between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. The stone arch aqueduct here spanned the Conemaugh River.

(from signs at location)

This site is unique because of the presence of an aqueduct and tunnel so close together. This unusual structure was required by the cnal engineer, Alonzo Livermore, to move canal boats from one side of Bow Ridge to the other. Westbound boats emerged from the tunnel and immediately passed onto the aqueduct that spanned the Conemaugh River. The only remains of the aqueduct are the foundations of the piers that once supported the aqueduct.


In 1827, when State engineer Alonzo Livermore was building the canal up the valley, from the Allegheny River, this point is as far as he was able to go, because, as you can see, there is no flat ground between the hillside and the river that was wide enough for a canal.

In such situations, it was customary to take the canal to the other side of the river, by means of an aqueduct, but there is no flat ground on the east side of the river, either.

Stymied, Livermore wrestled with the problem for more than a week before he came up with a solution that was innovative for that day. If he could not continue the canal around the Great Bend at Bow Ridge he would bore a tunnel to pass canal boats through the hill that blocked the way.

That was only the third tunnel ever dug in Americq, a novelty that attracted curious visitors to the canal construction camp called Tunnelview, known today as the village Tunnelton, one mile downriver from here.

The canal along here was badly damaged by the record flood of 1832; to protect the rebuilt works, the side of the towing path exposed to the river was paved with stones set closely together. Evidence of that "slope wall" can still be seen along the river side here.

The aqueduct that Livermore built was a stone-arched structure similar to the 1907 railroad bridge that stands here today. The aqueduct-tunnel overlook is located 200 feet upriver from this sign post.

The West Penn Trail is a project of the Comemaugh Valley Conservancy

Related website: [Web Link] When was it built?: 01/01/1827

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