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Article: Waterways, Inland
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
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WATERWAYS, INLAND
WATERWAYS, INLAND.
The United States has an outstanding system of inland waterways, consisting of more than twenty-five thousand miles of navigable rivers and canals, of which twelve thousand miles are commercial waterways. The system, which by definition does not include the Great Lakes or coastal shipping lanes, carries more than 600 million tons of domestic freight each year. This amounts to approximately 16 percent of the total intercity freight movements in the country.
In the colonial period, water transportation was vital. The first settlements were along waterways, and countless vessels sailed the coastal and tidewater streams, serving the trade, travel, and ...