European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 02, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Children watch water Rush from below the lock 33 Gate on the Erie canal at Pittsford . Trudging the Erie canal the mules Are gone but the engineering Marvel by David Germain the associated press Illie loan none rods a quiet Trail beside the Erie canal the same Towpath where mules dumped along 150 years ago hauling cargo boats East and a million settlers West loan none bom in 19t8, the Yea the Era of mules gave Way to motorized barges is a canal Walker paid to str Freach Day by the Placid waterway to Check for leaks in its Banks or rust under its Bridges. It s the same Job canal walkers have been doing since the original Erie opened in 1825, creating a cheap route from the East coast into the great lakes and the Interior United l states. But in his lifetime the Erie has declined from a brisk commercial canal into a deadly Dull strip of Muddy water slicing across new York from the Hudson River near Albany to the Niagara River near Buffalo. It s barely past Dawn when loan none begins some Days trying to get his 10-mile walks in before the midday Sun heats up the Blacktop coating the old dirt Towpath in the Rochester suburb of Pittsford As the Sun rises higher morning joggers and bicyclists join him on the Towpath. The Distant whoosh of Rush hour traffic kids the air As commuters head1 into Rochester. Some mornings Deer come to Trie waterway to drink. If a boat goes by leaving a big enough Wake Birds follow to i Peck at insects momentarily uncovered below the water Fine in the rocks along the canal Bank. Not Many boats go by. If my dad were living now he would t believe this canal loan none says. How quiet it  his father ran a commissary catering to canal Boatmen in the Early Barge Days. Boats crowded the waterway then hauling fuel wheat molasses Stone and Jumber their engines making the ground rumble All around the canal. Losing its Battle with the railroads the Erie already was in decline when the mules were retired. With the mules went much of the Romance and adventure that characterized the canal s first 80 years. Of the Early Boatmen there was something earthy about staring a mule team in the butt for 363 Miles As the animals plodded along the Towpath tugging boats at Miles per hour in the single digits. Mark Twain Charles Dickens and Herman Melville wrote about the old Erie. Dozens of songs and ballads were written about the waterway including the most famous the Erie canal which begins i be got a mule her name is Sal 15 Miles on the Erie  the Barge canal remained a viable commercial waterway into the 1 960s, when millions of tons of cargo were shipped each year on the Erie and its offshoots. But like the mutes the barges have almost disappeared from the Erie whose commercial traffic was siphoned away by trains trucks and the St Lawrence Seaway up North which can handle Ocean going vessels. Too slow and shallow to win Back freight haulers the canal has become an expensive Monument to itself costing new York $25 million a year for Upkeep. For years the new York department of transportation tried to keep the canal in Good shape on shrinking budgets. The waterway s locks began to crumble and dozens of Bridges Over the canal have been closed no longer Able to Bear traffic. . In recent decades suggestions for the canal have ranged from widening and deepening it to compete with the St Lawrence to filling it in and forgetting about it new York has made fitful efforts to promote tourism on _ the canal but the number of pleasure boats on the waterway has t changed much since the 1960s. It s such a jewel. There s nothing quite like it anywhere else in the country said William Shank who Heads the american canal society. The Erie really paved the Way for the canal Boom in this country and As such it ought to be preserved for no other  this year Marks the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Barge canal and the first full year of operation by the waterway s new proprietor the new York thruway authority. The state turned the canal Over to the Agency because it remains a boat moves through the double lock system on the Trie canal in downtown Lockport . 16 this Al and Sturno mar 3, if 93