ERIE 



2071 



ERIE CANAL 



industrial importance of the city. Besides large 

 exports of coal and iron, there are extensive 

 fisheries and a heavy trade in oil, lumber, 

 agricultural and manufactured products and 

 package freight. The harbor is the largest on 

 the lake, being four miles long and one mile 

 wide, and is protected by the peninsula called 

 Presque Isle, six miles long and one mile wide. 

 Three lighthouses stand at the entrance to the 

 harbor, and substantial wharves extend along 

 the entire front. 



The manufactures of Erie are important and 

 varied, the annual output being valued at more 

 than $30,000,000. About 16,000 people are em- 

 ployed in the 450 industrial establishments, the 

 most extensive of which are steam-engine and 

 boiler works. There are manufactories of iron 

 and brass products, paper, railroad cars, rubber 

 goods, air compressors, brick hollow-ware, elec- 

 trical supplies and agricultural implements; 

 besides these, there are planing mills, oil re- 

 fineries, tanneries, flour mills, breweries, chem- 

 ical works, boat-building plants and grain ele- 

 vators. 



Parks and Boulevards. Erie is located on a 

 bluff which affords a fine view of the lake, and 

 though it is principally a commercial city, it 

 has many beautiful parks and broad streets, 

 lined with handsome residences, fine trees and 

 attractive gardens. About 325 acres are as- 

 signed to parks, which contribute much to the 

 beauty of the city, the largest of these being 

 Waterworks Park on Presque Isle, of 150 acres; 

 Waldameer Park on the lake shore is one of 

 the most beautiful natural parks of the country. 

 The Cedars and Lake Side parks are among 

 the pleasure resorts of the city, and Cambridge 

 Springs is a noted health resort in the vicinity. 



Buildings and Institutions. The most 

 notable buildings are a Federal building, 

 erected in 1888, a city hall, a courthouse, a 

 $550,000 Commerce Building, constructed of 

 reenforced concrete, a Union Depot, two ca- 

 thedrals, a Y. M. C. A. building and a Masonic 

 Temple. The benevolent institutions include 

 two hospitals, a sanitarium, eight homes for 

 children and aged people and the Pennsyl- 

 vania Soldiers' and Sailors' Home. 



Education. The public school system of the 

 city, with two high schools and a normal school, 

 is supplemented by Saint John- Kanty College ; 

 Saint Benedict, Villa Maria and Erie academies, 

 a library with 30,000 volumes, and two business 

 colleges. 



History. The old French Fort Presque 

 Isle stood on the site of the present city of 



Erie in 1753. The English took possession of 

 it in 1760, but during the war of 1763 a large 

 force of Indians compelled the garrison to sur- 

 render. The town was laid out and settled by 

 some families from New England in 1795. Dur- 

 ing the War of 1812, the town was the head- 

 quarters of Commodore Perry; the two flag- 

 ships with which he defeated the British in the 

 naval Battle of Lake Erie, off Put-in-Bay, were 

 built and equipped here, and to Erie the vic- 

 torious fleet returned with its prizes and prison- 

 ers. The town was incorporated as a borough 

 in 1805 and in 1851 was chartered as a city. 

 In 1913 the commission form of government 

 was adopted, with a mayor and five other elec- 

 tive officers. J.S.G. 



ERIE CANAL, the first important waterway 

 constructed in the United States, whose com- 

 pletion, in 1825, marked the beginning of a 

 new era in the economic and commercial his- 

 tory of the American people. It extends from 



^PENNSYLVANIA 



ROUTE OF THE ERIE CANAL 

 The original canal is now a part of the New 

 York State Barge Canal System. 



Buffalo to Troy and Albany, N. Y., connecting 

 Lake Erie with the Hudson River, and orig- 

 inally was 363 miles long, twenty-eight feet 

 wide at the bottom, forty-two feet wide at 

 the top and four feet deep. This great public 

 work, which was built by the state of New 

 York at a cost of over seven million dollars, 

 was for years the main channel through which 

 the raw products of the developing West found 

 their way to New York, and over which the 

 finished products of the East were carried back 

 to Western consumers. 



Not only was it the chief single factor in 

 establishing New York City as the leading 

 commercial and financial center of the country, 

 but it was responsible for the building up of a 

 chain of towns and cities through the common- 

 wealth, thus contributing in no small measure 

 to the prosperity and growth of the "Empire 

 State." Between the year 1817, when the work 

 was begun, and 1882, when tolls were abolished, 

 the total revenue from operating the canal 

 amounted to $121,461,891, and during the first 

 ten years after its completion transportation 



