By Joyce Kryszak
Lockport, NY – Before 1816, there were no roads in Lockport. There was no industry. There were no merchants or doctors.
And, according to at least one historical account - not a single person living in the wilderness now known as Lockport.
But then, before 1816, there was no Erie Canal.
"Clinton's Ditch," as it was known, was a crazy idea that worked, spurring commerce throughout the state - and giving birth to the bustling city of Lockport.
But as the Canal's glory days passed, Lockport's opportunities also slowed to a trickle.
Today, Lockport is finding ways to siphon new life from the virtually obsolete commercial waterway.
Generations of school children in New York state grew up learning the familiar tune, "Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal."
For most, it was taught from a songbook, with sketches of the canal's tow path and barges bordering the page.
It was a musical history lesson about a great legacy that had long ago floated away -until now.
These fourth graders from Lindenville schools are among the nearly twenty thousand who will make their way down through locks 34 and 35 - the final locks on the Erie Canal.
The dusty pages of history come to life as the children learn first hand about the man-made waterway that connected all of New York with the Great Lakes - and helped open up the Western Frontier.
Chris Fritton is a tour boat captain for the Lockport Locks and Erie Canal Cruises.
He said it is a legacy that has been lost along the way.
"I really find that people know little about it, even the people that live in the towns along the way. We get quite a few people that come on the boats from Lockport, and they'll be like well, I've never been on the canal...it's always been here, and I don't know anything about it," said Fritton.
"But that's good," he adds. "I like my job, because I can educate people, as well as just take them out for a cruise on the canal."
But Fritton said sometimes his guests give him the history lesson.
"We actually had a woman who celebrated her hundredth birthday party with us a few years ago," said Fritton. "And she was born a barge on the canal."
"Her family worked on the canal their whole lives, and she was born right on a barge. And she came and celebrated her birthday with us."
In 1825, the canal began celebrating its own one hundred years of robust life.
Governor Dewitt Clinton celebrated the canal opening with the "Marriage of the Waters."
He traveled the 363 mile length of the new waterway, and at the end, poured a keg of water from Lake Erie into the Atlantic.
From that day, until early in the next century, ocean barges from all over the world brought cargo to America's heartland - via this engineering marvel.
But troubled waters lay ahead.
The canal was enlarged twice to stay commercially viable. But the railroad, followed by the emerging trucking industry drastically curbed canal traffic.
Then in 1959, the St. Lawrence Seaway - with its capacity to welcome giant freight liners - sealed the Erie Canal's fate.
Lockport is just one of many canal towns struggling to regain its footing along the canal banks.
The city that once boasted dozens of factories and mills has watched most big business close up, or move on.
Fritton said there is even a strange foreshadowing in a story about one of Lockport's most notable founders.
Birdsall Holly was a nineteenth century water genius who tapped into the canal's early promise.
"He had a plant here called Holly Waterworks - they were producing fire hydrants," said Fritton. "And we was away from his plant one time, his fire hydrant plant actually burnt down. So, we always give that as an ironic example of the historic events."
Today, Lockport is keeping a watchful eye as it works to reinvent itself.
The city recently received a matching grant to conduct a waterfront revitalization study.
Lockport Mayor Thomas Sullivan says they will be searching for every opportunity the canal now has to offer.
"Right from one end of the city, to the other end of the city, and all through the canal, which cuts right through the city of Lockport, we're going to be trying to identify all the available resources of the canal and what we can do with it," said Sullivan. "I'm kind of excited about that."
But some eager entrepreneurs aren't waiting.
The Lockport Locks and Canal Cruises company was built on canal tourism.
Since it came on board in 1987, the company has expanded its fleet and its business - giving tours to more than 60,000 people a year.
Fritton said that's good - but the potential - especially for Lockport - is still largely untapped.
"If you have a family member from out of town, and you bring them in and they go on the boat ride and they get look all around Lockport, then they go back to wherever they're from and they tell their friends about it," said Fritton."
"That's what we have to push for, is to have people come here and not say, well, I can do it in a day. If you can bring them in and they say I'm going to stay a whole week there, because there's so much to do," added Fritton. "Then your whole region becomes an attraction, rather than just like a local phenomenon, they become a nationwide attraction."
Thursday, in part two of our series on Lockport, we'll explore one underground effort to attract canal tourists to the region.