Erie Canal Village

15 miles and 200 years of the Erie Canal 

It doesn’t look like a miracle today – but when it opened in 1825, the Erie Canal was an engineering marvel, a $7 million stroke of genius that helped open the American West to expansion and helped ferry a nation’s resources to market. Work on the 365-mile-long canal – which folks had started calling Clinton’s Ditch, thanks to the urgent support of Gov. De Witt Clinton - started here in Rome in 1817; the first section, to Utica, opened two years later. The Erie Canal Village, an outdoor living history museum, features a blacksmith shop, ice house, school, store and more. 

At a glance
  • See three museums at the Village: One that tells the story of the canal, another devoted to horse-drawn vehicles, and a third devoted to cheese making.
  • Celebrate National Trails Day on the first Saturday in June – get discounted admission.
  • Take a train ride along the canal in a 1956 Plymouth DDT diesel.