Auburn Tunnel | |
Location: | Auburn, Pennsylvania |
Status: | open cut, abandoned |
Startwork: | 1818[1] |
Opened: | 1821 |
Closed: | 1857, converted to cut[2] |
Owner: | Schuylkill Navigation Company |
Length: | 450feet |
Hielevation: | 471feet above Delaware River, mid tide |
Height: | 22feet |
Width: | 15feet |
Auburn Tunnel was a 19th-century canal tunnel built for the Schuylkill Canal near Auburn, Pennsylvania. It was the first transportation tunnel in the United States.[3]
The tunnel was deliberately added to the canal as a novelty, as the hill it was bored though could have easily been bypassed. It became a major attraction, with people traveling over 97miles[4] upriver from Philadelphia to see it. It was periodically shortened, and in 1857 was daylighted to become an open-cut.