[IndianaTrails] CANAL UPDATE -- Trailside interpretive displays

[Canal Center]

THE FIRST OF MANY CANAL TRAILSIDE EXHIBITS

Last week marked the arrival of the first of many unique trailside exhibit
items coming to Delphi Historic Trails.  Volunteers moved an old Wabash
Railroad baggage building that originally was used at Burrows Station.  This
small 'typically railroad looking' building represents the Wabash Line when
it was built through here in 1856.

This building with its 'crossbuck doors' has been on a farm north of
Rockfield for many years after it was last used for the railroad.  Dr. Tom
Anderson donated it to the Canal Association.  This will become one of a
lengthy list of interactive interpretive.  The trails will become adorned
with 10 commemorative sites highlighting the canal period.  

Railroads quickly took over the lucrative shipping business that canals were
developed for.  The quicker pace and year 'round shipping offered by rail
was favored and the use of waterways diminished.  By 1874 Delphi saw the
final run of the Wabash & Erie Canal boats.   Boats always moved too slow
and in winter they were unable to operate at all.  The favored transit was
pulled by steam locomotives.

This interpretive site with its baggage building and section of narrow
gauge/standard gauge rail will be located at the back of Canal Park.  At
this site the two great historic transportation systems crossed.  The canal
has been dredged for a mile and is also accessed by the Canal Association's
pontoon boat in the summer.  

The intersecting live railroad is owned by US Aggregates to haul crushed
stone products away from their Delphi plant.  Since the rail spur line  is
still operating a tunnel was installed two years ago for the convenience of
trail hikers accessing the ever popular Underhill Towpath Trail.

The site will be developed by canal volunteers in the next months to look
like this drawing.  It will be a rest stop along the towpath at the tunnel
beneath the railroad.  Design for all ten special historic sites along the
trails has been developed by Len Mysliwiec.  To his credit are the dozen
galleries inside the Canal Interpretive Center that he designed.

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