The Volunteer (canal boat)
The Volunteer is a 76-foot replica of a 19th-century canal boat which is owned and operated by the Canal Corridor Association. The Volunteer operates on a restored section of the Illinois and Michigan Canal at LaSalle, Illinois, US.
The Volunteer moored on the Illinois and Michigan Canal at LaSalle, Illinois
Then-Congressman Jerry Weller (left) and former LaSalle Mayor Art Washkowiak on the upper deck of The Volunteer.
Illinois and Michigan Canal
The Illinois and Michigan Canal connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. In Illinois, it ran 96 miles (154 km) from the Chicago River in Bridgeport, Chicago to the Illinois River at LaSalle-Peru. The canal crossed the Chicago Portage, and helped establish Chicago as the transportation hub of the United States, before the railroad era. It was opened in 1848. Its function was partially replaced by the wider and deeper Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in 1900, and it ceased transportation operations with the completion of the Illinois Waterway in 1933.
a scene at Seneca, Illinois
New lock and dam structures that replaced the historic Illinois and Michigan Canal
Illinois and Michigan Canal west of Willow Springs, where the unused canal is clogged with fallen trees
Fox River Aqueduct in Ottawa, Illinois