Two hundreds years ago, construction began on a 363-mile canal linking the Great Lakes to the Hudson River and New York City
It was an engineering and commercial triumph as revolutionary as the Internet in it's day.
But the Erie Canal was dismissed at first. New York politician DeWitt Clinton spent 10 years fighting to sell the project to a deeply skeptical public, and Presidents Jefferson and Madison refused to help fund it. Yet the canal quickly changed the geography and commerce of the young nation. Richard Schlesinger reports on the history of the Erie Canal, still celebrated in song as an example of American ingenuity.
Here's a GREAT piece we just found by CBS News and shown on their CBS Sunday Morning show.
