The Whitewater Canal historic corridor guide

The former Whitewater Canal, built between 1836 and 1847, spanned a distance of seventy-six miles from Lawrenceburg to Hagerstown, Indiana.' Initial construction was financed by Indiana's Mammoth Internal Improvements Act of 1836; a bill that strained the financial resources of the state, forcing it into bankruptcy in the summer of 1839. Canal construction was stopped until 1842, when the state granted the privately organized and financed White Water Valley Canal Company a charter to complete the unfinished portion of the canal between Brookville and Cambridge City.The unwieldy Whitewater River, however, proved too formidable for the fledgling canal company. A series of floods, in conjunction with a costly law suit, forced the White Water Valley Canal Company into receivership in 1855. The company was purchased at auction in 1865 by the Whitewater Valley Railroad Company, a Cincinnati and Indianapolis Railway subsidiary. Between 1867 and 1868, the railroad company laid its tracks atop the towpath of the former canal.Today, the state of Indiana owns fourteen miles of former canal channel between Laurel and Brookville, Indiana. The state owned portion is maintained by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, and is operated as the Whitewater Canal State Historic Site. The non-profit Whitewater Valley Railroad Museum runs excursion trains over much of the old towpath between Connersville and Metamora, Indiana. And the Indiana and Ohio short-line railroad operates over the former towpath between Harrison, Ohio and Brookville, Indiana.This paper provides an overview of the Whitewater Canal, a brief history of construction for each half-mile section of the canal between West Harrison and Brookville, and a survey of existing canal vestiges within each of those sections. The maps that accompany the list of construction sections identify the locations of numerous surviving canal structures as well the approximate locations of those structures either demolished or buried.The purpose of this project is to draw attention to an endangered segment of the former Whitewater Canal corridor. Roughly eighteen continuous miles of the old right-of-way between West Harrison and Brookville, Indiana is soon to be abandoned by the Indiana & Ohio Railroad, the current owner of the property. In addition to the picturesque scenery through which the right-of-way meanders, the old transportation route is steeped in the history of the Whitewater Valley and the State of Indiana itself. Ideal for recreational purposes and education, this threatened stretch of former canal corridor deserves attention and preservation.Department of ArchitectureThesis (M.S.H.P.