Developing the I & M Canal

Ana Koval: Executive Director, Canal Corridor Association.

Thank you, Jerry. I want to share with you today some of the other work of the Canal Corridor Association, some of our efforts in heritage tourism along the rest of the I&M Canal. We have been working to increase the number and quality of I&M Canal Corridor tourism sites while strengthening the thematic links between these sites.

Our goals in heritage tourism include:

Developing of a consistent story line.

Developing a regional image, and…

Using these tools to link together our sites so that we have the critical mass of sites necessary to attract the lucrative heritage tourist.

First, telling the story. Telling the story is important. It is really what people want to know —what is important or special about this place? In our case, we decided we wanted to tell a story of a passageway.

Visitors to The I&M Canal walk in the footsteps of people who have traveled an ancient passageway carved by the glaciers. This corridor has been a passageway for migratory birds. Native Americans first used the waterways for trade. They shared their routes with French explorers who became the first to dream of building a canal. Father Marquette and Louis Joliet first recognized this wetland as the easiest link between the Mississippi and the Great Lakes in 1673.

Over 150 years later, constructed between 1836 and 1848, the Illinois & Michigan Canal further enhanced this passageway with a water route capable of moving large quantities of heavy goods. The I&M was the last link coming some twenty-three years after the Erie Canal. And since the canal was finished in 1848, other water routes, the railroads and eventually highways all were built in the passageway.

We reinforce the passageway story by telling the stories of the real people who have lived and worked in the passageway.

A steel silhouette of William Gooding stands near the canal at Lockport, Illinois. Mr. Gooding was the chief engineer for the canal and you can see him there with his canal plans in his hand. Mr. Gooding worked for the 12 years it took to complete the canal and then once the canal was opened was fired for showing favoritism towards some of the canal contractors.

Elsie Armstrong stands with her eight sons in a plaza between the canal and one of our canal towns — Morris. Elsie came to the Illinois frontier in 1831 leaving her drunken husband in Ohio. Three of her sons eventually worked on the canal, several became prominent citizens in various professions in Grundy County, and two served in the state legislature. There you can see them as they arrived in Morris ages three through 19.

In another era, the Marx Brothers worked along the canal. They once owned a chicken farm near the canal but failed as farmers. There you can see Harpo and Groucho on their way to work at the Rialto Theater in Joliet in the 1930s. The Marx brothers are part of a series of silhouettes in Joliet. Along the bicycle route in Joliet, which connects two portion of the canal trail, are silhouettes of eight men and women of different ethnic groups and different occupations going to work in the many industries that grew up along the canal and the subsequent transportation routes.

Mr. Gutierrez who arrived in Joliet with his wife and grandmother in 1919 and went to work driving spikes on the EJE Railroad is there. And meet Mary Setina, a Slovenian immigrant who lived in a St. Joseph’s neighborhood known as Slovenian Row and owned a store there.

Please come and visit the I&M Canal and meet 21 full-size, Cor-Ten steel silhouettes along the canal and at a few of the sites adjacent to the canal.

We are working to develop a regional image and link the many different sites in the corridor together for the visitor. We developed a logo for the area. This is not our organization’s logo but is a logo for the many sites within the corridor. We are using this logo on gateway signs that identify the region as you enter it on major roads and on driving tour signs, individual interpretive signs, mile markers, and on printed materials.

Our first challenge has been to help visitors find their way to our sites and between our sites. We have 63 cultural, natural, and historic sites that are open to visitors along the 100-mile corridor. Part of the area is industrial, given that industry grew up along the canal, and part is rural. A 75 mile driving tour route has been established taking visitors through ten “canal towns,” past fifteen access points to the canal and past many other places to stop and visit, places such as state parks, restored prairies and natural areas. The driving tour signs are being augmented with printed materials — a map/brochure, audio tapes or a CD which you can listen to in your car as you drive the route, and downloadable information on our web site.

Another way we have been promoting a regional image is on our trails. Currently there are 80 miles of bicycle and walking trails along the canal. Parts of our canal are owned and managed by different units of government. We are in the process of unifying our towpath trails with a system of mile markers. These V-shaped markers have Cor-ten steel posts and two unique panels. Each panel has a version of our boy and mule logo and tells the visitor how far they are from the origins of the canal in Chicago; what is the name of the trail they are on; directional information – how long to the next attraction; and a fact about the canal. Let me give you an example of a canal fact. “A canal boat was about the size of a city bus and would hold 90 people or 100 tons of cargo.”

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