Illinois and Michigan Canal

The Illinois and Michigan Canal connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River. In Illinois, it ran 96 miles (154 km) from the Chicago River in Bridgeport, Chicago, to the Illinois River at LaSalle-Peru. Opened in 1848, the canal crossed the Chicago Portage and helped establish Chicago as the transportation hub of the United States, before the railroad era. 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.

Portions of the canal have been filled in. Much of the former canal, near the Heritage Corridor transit line, has been preserved as part of the Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor. Illinois and Michigan Canal Locks and Towpath, a collection of eight engineering structures and segments of the canal between Lockport and LaSalle-Peru, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964.