I & M Canal Looking West, Lemont, IL

The need to link Lake Michigan with the Mississippi River through a canal had been envisioned as early as the 1600's when the Great Lakes area was first explored. Construction of the Illinois & Michigan (I &M) began in 1837. It was also represented the last major Canal undertaking in the United States. When it was completed in 1848, it provided a continuous waterway stretching from New York (through the Erie Canal, Lake Erie, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan to Chicago, then through the I & M for 97 miles entering the Illinois River at La Salle, Illinois to the Mississippi River, to New Orleans) to the Gulf of Mexico.

Its construction also provided ready employment for many Irishmen fleeing the potato famine in Ireland and was a large long-term stimulus to the economic development of many towns along or near it. Compared to wlaking or horseback, the I & M was also a smooth and convenient means of transportation. Local products could now be easily moved to distant markets and finished products of the big cities of the East Coast and from Europe became more readily available further facilitating the development of the area.

The digging of the I & M Canal also led to the discovery and commercialization of the large omnipresent limestone deposits in Lemont. The stone proved very hard to dig through and slowed the completion of the I &M Canal.

The glory day of the horse-pulled I & M canal boat era started to decline with the completion of the even faster and convenient railways through Lemont starting in the 1850's. Still some 30 years later, it provided a viable alternative for shipping heavy items such as Lemont's limestone which was in high demand in Chicago after its great fire in 1873. The quarry owners dug the rock in quarries purposefully sited next to the canal so as to minimize the difficulty of moving the heavy stones from the quarry to their boats on the canal.

A much wider and deeper Sanitary and Ship Canal was opened by the start of the 20th Century and the I & M quickly slid in to disuse. Subsequent run off of soil and debris has filled the canal to a depth of only a few feet in places.