When De Witt Clinton, a young politician, first dreamed of building a canal to connect the Hudson River with the Great Lakes, folks didn't believe such a thing could be done. Clinton wanted to link east coast ports to the frontier, and from the groundbreaking ceremony on the Fourth of July in 1817, Clinton never gave up--even as people called his project "Clinton's Ditch."

Eight long years later, he'd realized his vision at last and constructed the longest uninterrupted canal in history--allowing water travel from the American prairie all the way to Europe!