Even after a couple hundred years of industrial activity in its various incarnations, western Pennsylvania is still a wild and scenic place. Today it's difficult to imagine just what things used be like before highways, bridges and railroads enabled us to zip from one ridge or valley to the next. The rugged topography which proved to be well-suited for coal extraction, and the steep forests with their seemingly endless supplies of timber, were formidable obstacles of yesteryear. The 2400'-tall Allegheny Ridge (also called the Allegheny Front) was the most formidable of these barriers, until the era of Pennsylvania's first major transportation improvement: the historic Pennsylvania Mainline Canal. Completed in 1834, the Pennsylvania Mainline Canal System paved the way for expansion westward from Philadelphia, across the Alleghenies to Pittsburgh and beyond. A way of life sprang up along this corridor as Pennsylvania prepared for a century of nation-building.

Communities along the route shared a common legacy.

The Pittsburgh-to-Harrisburg Greenway is the next chapter in this story.

Managed by the Allegheny Ridge Corporation and its partners, the Pittsburgh-to-Harrisburg Greenway Project is an initiative which brings together:

• Recreation-Planning
• Watershed Stewardship
• Heritage Preservation
• Downtown Revitalization
• Economic Development
• General Quality-of-Life Issues

within a single historic landscape
              once traversed by
    The Pennsylvania Mainline Canal System.