Skeptics mocked it as "Clinton's Ditch." It ended up reshaping a nation.

On October 26, 1825, the Erie Canal officially opened. Stretching about 363 miles from Buffalo on Lake Erie to Albany on the Hudson River, it connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. Governor DeWitt Clinton, its champion, set off from Buffalo aboard the boat Seneca Chief to mark the occasion.

The canal cut the cost and time of moving goods dramatically, opened the Midwest to settlers and trade, and helped turn New York City into the country's leading port. Towns along its route boomed.

Can you think of a modern project that changed trade as much as the Erie Canal did?

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