Manayunk Canal Restoration Begins

February 3, 2012 | by Mike Szilagyi for Hidden City Philadelphia

When Lance Butler first set eyes on the Manayunk Canal twelve years ago, his first thought was “this place could be incredible.” Today, as manager of environmental restoration and monitoring for the Philadelphia Water Department, he has been given the opportunity to make that happen.

Opened nearly two hundred years ago, in 1819, the Manayunk Canal was a key link in the hundred mile long Schuylkill Navigation system. Built to bring coal to the coastal cities and ports by way of canal barge, the waterway was soon overshadowed by the network of railroads then being built. After peaking in the 1850s, traffic on the canal dwindled each year with the final commercial boat passing in 1922. Many sections of the Navigation, such as the mile-long Plymouth Canal in Conshohocken, were filled in without a trace.

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