I stumbled on a used, signed copy of New York State CANALS: A Short History, (1998) by F. Daniel Larkin. What a pleasant surprise for someone who knows a fair amount about the Erie Canal around Rochester, NY, but not as much about other places.

This 100-page paperback taught me a thing or two about the original Erie Canal, the lateral canals, corporate canals, Long Island’s canal, the Barge Canal System and the St. Lawrence Seaway. It amazed me how much money – thousands of dollars – got approved by the state legislature for projects that didn’t work out. Stunning.

CANALS gave such a good overview of the changes from NYS’s wilderness era to the enormous changes introduced by the canals, industrialization, commercialization and their eventual demise, that I read it twice.

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