I wrote about Abandoned Canals in Canada several months ago. That prompted 12MC reader Bill Harris to comment on an unusual re-purposing of an abandoned canal across the border in the United States. He noted that a portion of the Erie Canal that originally flowed through downtown Rochester, NY (part of my ancestors’ journey) was abandoned due to rerouting. It was subsequently drained, covered, and transformed into a tunnel for a light rail system. I thought it was a great comment, I conducted additional research and… somehow I forgot about it. Recently I came across my original notes so I’m posting what I intended to write last September.
Rochester, New York
Flickr by Patrick Haney via Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0)
The Rochester Subway website provided a summary:
The Erie Canal, responsible for much of upstate New York’s economic growth, was considered an obsolete eyesore by the turn of the century. The state legislature allocated money for relocation of the canal, and the last boat traveled through the city locks in 1919. After much debate about what to do with the abandoned canal bed, the city of Rochester then purchased the land for construction of a trolley subway that would greatly reduce the amount of surface traffic in the populous city. Eight years after the last canal boat was piloted through the city, the Rochester Industrial & Rapid Transit Railway was opened to the public in December 1927.
The covered-over canal became a subway tunnel and the surface above it became Broad Street (map). The subway wasn’t very successful although it somehow managed to sputter along until the mid 1950′s. The portion of Interstate 490 east of Rochester’s Inner Loop replaced much of the former canal and subway
Sections of tunnel still exist inside the city’s central core although largely hidden from sight. It pokes into view very briefly at the Broad Street Bridge which was designed originally as the Second Genesee Aqueduct of the Erie Canal, carrying the canal across the Genesee River. From street-level it seems to be just another roadway (Street View). From the side one can clearly observe the lower level where water once flowed and street cars later crossed (Street View).
Amateur spelunkers sometimes sneak through the abandoned Rochester Subway for urban exploration. The photograph above was taken by one such explorer inside of the Broad Street Bridge tunnel.
Cincinnati, Ohio
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Was it common to cover abandoned canals and convert them into subway tunnels? I quickly uncovered two more examples that were mentioned frequently on the Intertubes. Cincinnati was one of those two although critics could easily split hairs and claim it didn’t count. The system was never completed and trains never ran through the intended tunnel.
The city planned to follow the route of the Miami and Erie Canal which had been constructed in 1825. The canal served a useful purpose for a time, connecting the Great Lakes to the Ohio River (and thus the Mississippi River watershed). However it suffered a fate similar to many other canals competing with railroads. It went into decline and eventually failed as a commercial enterprise.
Numerous proposals were floated at the turn of the last century. The Cincinnati Enquirer summarized the situation in Subway legend has never left the station:
Construction started in 1920. Work stopped in 1927. The money had run out. Crews of men, mules and horses had completed 10 of the 16 miles in the system’s loop – including two miles of tunnels – running under downtown and Central Parkway and above ground along what would become the routes of interstates 75 and 71 and the Norwood Lateral.
Tunnels and stations are still down there below the city streets in a remarkable state of preservation including the Race Street Station at Central Parkway & Race St., which would have been the main hub. The Cincinnati Museum offers occasional tours as part of its heritage programs for those who are curious to observe the mysterious tunnels of a stillborn subway firsthand.
Newark, New Jersey
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Newark, New Jersey probably wins a prize because its a subway that still operates along the original route of an abandoned canal. The stretch from the Military Park Station to Branch Brook Park Station at Heller Parkway (route map) converted the pathway of the Morris Canal to a new mode of transportation when the subway opened in 1935. The entrance to the Military Park Station is displayed in the Street View image, above.
The Morris Canal ran across northern New Jersey for about a century, beginning with its construction in the 1820′s. It was probably noted most for its innovative use of 23 inclined planes in addition to traditional locks in order to move coal barges over a series of hills. I’ve talked about the inclined plane technique previously although not in the context of the Morris Canal. It was pretty impressive.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Newark Light Rail is the only place where one can visit a canal that’s been converted into a subway without any hassles, other than purchasing a ticket to ride the train. As always, I hope the 12MC audience can prove me wrong.
Honorable Mentions
There were a few notable places which did not fit the strict definition of a canal converted to a subway. They deserved to be mentioned for other reasons.
(1) Manhattan made Internet searches difficult because of Canal Street running across the lower tip of the island and accompanying stations on the New York City subway system. Canal Street Stations serve a whole spaghetti tangle of different lines. The canal referenced by Canal Street was essentially a drainage ditch that emptied the Collect Pond, which had become a cesspool by the early 19th Century. Canal Street followed the route of the old canal after the fetid pond was eventually filled-in. The old canal did not become a subway tunnel although it still hid an interesting history.
(2) The Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Canal forced a railroad to tunnel through a mountainside at Point of Rocks, Maryland. The canal held the right-of-way next to the Potomac River, as recounted by the C&O Canal Bicycle Guide; "After the canal failed, the railroad built a second track in the abandoned canal bed." The second track, however, wasn’t converted into a tunnel although the two tracks looked fascinating in Street View.
(3) The Third Welland Canal in Ontario, part of a system connecting Lakes Ontario and Erie to bypassing Niagara Falls, included a train tunnel that went under a canal. As noted by Wikipedia, "The Grand Trunk Railway Tunnel, also known as the ‘Blue Ghost Tunnel’, is an abandoned railway tunnel located in the community of Thorold, Ontario, which runs under lock 18 of the former third Welland Canal (1887-1932)." (map). Again, an interesting feature, although not exactly what I was hoping to find.
And a belated Thank You to Bill Harris!
I knew I barely scratched the surface with Quad County Towns, a collection of municipalities that sprawled across the boundaries of four different counties. Examples were surprisingly difficult to find. I turned it over to the Twelve Mile Circle audience who quickly doubled my feeble efforts by appending comments. I hadn’t planned on writing a sequel, however, the crowdsourced contributions warranted further research, mapping and recognition.
Barrington Hills, Illinois
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Reader "MWD" offered Barrington Hills in Illinois. The village included territory in Cook, Lake, McHenry and Kane Counties. It also had a fascinating history, begun as a weekend getaway for wealthy Chicagoans who retreated to rural estates for genteel activities such as fox hunting across the open spaces and hobnobbing at the local Country Club. Chicago’s population continued marching westward for the first half of the Twentieth Century so Barrington Hills’ residents formed a village to block encroaching suburbanization. It remains an equestrian community that protects its rural character by strictly enforcing 5-acre minimum zoning.
Kansas City, Missouri
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Kansas City, MO seemed obvious once "KCJeff" pointed it out. The city, which is completely independent of its counterpart with the same name on the other side of the state line, crossed into Jackson, Cass, Clay and Platte counties. Kansas City included land rather convincingly within each of the counties except Cass.
I drilled-down into Kansas City’s minor incursion into Cass County and noticed an airport runway. The boundary jogged around the southern edge of the runway. A little sleuthing uncovered this as part of the former Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base that was shut in 1994 due to the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) effort. Apparently Kansas City wanted the entirety of the Air Force Base within its boundaries. Annexing a tiny territory in Cass County was the only way to accomplish that. Today the former base is used for a variety of public and private purposes.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
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"John Deeth" mentioned Oklahoma City’s borders extending into Oklahoma, Canadian, Cleveland, and Pottawatomie counties. I’ve always loved this location because the state is Oklahoma, the county is Oklahoma and the city is Oklahoma. However I need to amend that now, to recognize that there are parts of Oklahoma City that do not conform to the mantra, those parts in Canadian, Cleveland, and Pottawatomie.
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Only the tiniest sliver of Oklahoma City crossed into Pottawatomie County. The Google Street View car burrowed deep into the Pottawatomie nob, revealing the rustic image reproduced above. This is Oklahoma City? Indeed it is. I’ve examined the nob extensively in satellite mode and I cannot determine any intuitive reason for the city to annex this particular plot. Nothing seemed to distinguish it from any of the surrounding terrain.
Bellevue, Ohio
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I have bad news for "Greg" — I don’t think that Bellevue, Ohio crossed into Seneca County. We should count this as a near-miss. In all fairness to Greg, he acknowledged that as a distinct possibility. I tried to corroborate the assertion made in Wikipedia ("a city in Erie, Huron, Sandusky and Seneca counties") and could not find any evidence to support Seneca. Even the street map on the City of Bellevue website stopped directly on the Seneca County line but it did not cross it.
I believe the burden of proof is on Wikipedia to cite a proper reference for the four counties claim. There are many organizations and businesses in the area that are called "four county" this-and-that, and the Bellevue Public Library‘s district "is a rarity in Ohio with borders in four counties." Perhaps that’s how the confusion arose, or maybe there was a recent annexation not yet included on the city’s maps. I couldn’t find it.
I’d enjoy adding one more location to the quad towns list so I hope someone can prove me wrong, or at least update Wikipedia if the evidence isn’t forthcoming. Several Wikipedians subscribe to 12MC. Maybe someone can fix that.
Honorable Mentions
"Greg" also mentioned New York City, as did Ariel Dybner. The famous five boroughs are also counties: Brooklyn; Manhattan; Queens, Staten Island and The Bronx. I almost included NYC on the earlier article. It hit the cutting-room floor due to time and space constraints.
New York City is a wonderful anomaly however the counties are effectively non-functional. I talked about this in one of the earliest 12MC articles, Smallest County in the USA, Part 2. An 1898 city-consolidation created a unified New York City under a unique arrangement sometimes described as sui generis ("one that is of its own kind"). The minor, residual county governance that remained after consolidation was undone by a 1989 United States Supreme Court decision, Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris. NYC is a case of the tail wagging to the dog until the tail actually became the dog. I do believe it’s unique and therefore it doesn’t quite fit the category.
Then "Mike Lowe" offered the peculiar history of Broomfield, Colorado. Today it’s a combined city-county, however it was split between Adams, Boulder, Jefferson and Weld Counties until 2001. Broomfield is both one of the smallest and one of the newest counties in the United States. The City and County of Broomfield said:
To help alleviate the problems and confusion in accessing services with the City of Broomfield being the only city in the state to lie in portions of four counties, residents sought relief in a constitutional amendment creating a City and County of Broomfield.
In other words, Broomfield set itself up as a separate county specifically because it was tired of dealing with the peculiarities of sprawling across the boundaries of four separate counties.
Thank you everyone for the contributions!
I had fun with Wikipedia’s List of Oldest Companies after I bounced onto it randomly, and of course it included a geographic component. I decided to examine claims for various nations using the list as a starting point.
I think it’s important to stress that these are only claims. References and websites for individual companies often hedge their assertion with qualifiers such as "reputed to be" or "probably" so I wouldn’t insist that any of these are the absolute oldest even though they would certainly qualify as ancient within their particular realms.
Japan – Oldest in the World
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The oldest continuously-operated company in the world today is likely (notice the qualifier) Nisiyama Onsen Keiunkan hotel which is located at a hot spring in Hayakawa, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. Actually the first several companies on the list are all located in Japan. Japanese firms dominate the entire category. There’s something about Japanese culture that nurtures and protects these mostly modest endeavors for a millennium or more. Nisiyama Onsen Keiunkan has been around since the year 705 according to Guinness World Records.
Oddly, Nisiyama Onsen Keiunkan captured the longevity title only recently. Kongo Gumi, a Japanese temple builder, ruled the roost until 2006. Kongo Gumi was established and remained under the control of a single family starting in 578 before succumbing to 21st Century economic pressures. Imagine poor Masakazu Kongo, the 40th and final company leader, who failed to pass down what the previous 39 generations of his family had preserved.
Speaking of temple building, I noticed a rather startling swastika symbol south of the Nisiyama Onsen Keiunkan hotel. I clicked the tag and dropped the Japanese characters into translation software that identified it as a Buddhist temple. Some basic research confirmed that "on Japanese maps, a swastika (left-facing and horizontal) is used to mark the location of a Buddhist temple." It’s perfectly proper in this context albeit it came as a jolt to me because of my westernized point of reference.
Continental Europe
Flickr by marketing deluxe via Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) License
An example from continental Europe followed next after a parade of Japanese occurrences. It was the Stiftskeller St. Peter in Salzburg, Austria, a restaurant that dated back at least to the year 803 (map). The restaurant claimed that it was "mentioned for the first time by the scholar Alcuin, a follower of Emperor Charlemagne, thus regarded as the oldest restaurant in Europe."
It also interested me because Stiftskeller St. Peter is contained within the confines of St. Peter’s Archabbey (Stiftskeller translates to Abbey Basement). I learned a new word today too: an archabbey is a principal abbey of the Order of Saint Benedict. One can dine within a Benedictine monastery like people have done since the 9th Century.
United Kingdom
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Several people from the UK subscribe to the Twelve Mile Circle so I wanted to feature something from the British Islands. The oldest company is believed to be a pub called The Bingley Arms in Bardsey, West Yorkshire. As the pub described it, "The Bingley Arms, or The Priests Inn as it was called hundreds of years ago, has a known history that dates back as far as 953AD when Samson Ellis brewed in the central part of the building. However, evidence suggests that it might even date back to 905AD and was standing before All Hallows Church, just a few yards away, was built in 950AD."
Then it talks about the usual ghost stories and stuff which is typical of just about every website describing ancient places.
United States
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No company in the so-called "New World" will compare favorably to Asian or European business longevity. The Native Americans had completely different cultural norms so notions of family businesses passed down through multiple generations had to wait until European settlement. The oldest example was a farm along the James River in Charles City County Virginia — Shirley Plantation — established in 1613. Bear in mind that the first permanent English colony at Jamestown (my visit) didn’t happen until 1607 so Shirley Plantation followed the original landing by a mere six years. That makes the date quite remarkable within its context.
The top tier of ancient establishments in the US were all farms. The oldest non-farm was The Seaside Inn in Kennebunkport, Maine that’s been operated continuously since 1667. They say that, "9th Generation Family Innkeepers make us America’s oldest running family run business." Well, except for the farms, I guess.
Canada and Australia
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Canada’s oldest business may be the most well-known of the lot, the Hudson’s Bay company founded in 1670. I decided to show Hudson Bay rather than the company’s headquarters in some generic office tower in Toronto (street view).
Ditto for Australia. I can’t add much visual impact by showing the Brisbane headquarters of the Australian Agricultural Company, founded in 1824. Today they "operate 19 cattle stations, two feedlots and three farms across more than 7.2 million hectares of land across Queensland and the Northern Territory."
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