National Canal Museum and Hugh Moore Park

In the early 1800s, hard anthracite coal discovered in the mountains of eastern Pennsylvania needed a way to reach the cities. The answer was the canal, and the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company built a system of dams, locks, and towpaths along the Lehigh River so that mule-drawn boats could carry coal down to Easton and on to markets in Philadelphia and New York. This was a marvel of early engineering and helped fuel the young country's industrial rise.

For decades the canals bustled with boat families who lived aboard their vessels, working the locks and driving the mules along the towpath. Then the railroads arrived, faster and unbound by frozen winters, and the canals slowly fell silent. The region was part of the ancestral homeland of the Lenape people, whose descendant nations continue elsewhere today, and whose river trails preceded every canal and rail line.

The National Canal Museum is built around doing rather than just looking. Interactive exhibits let visitors operate scale models of locks, lift a boat through them, and see how water was moved and controlled to carry heavy cargo across uneven country. It is an especially good place to grasp how canals actually worked, something hard to picture from a photograph alone.

The exhibits also tell the human story of the canals, the boat families, the mule drivers, and the towns that grew up around the locks. This section of Pennsylvania was one of the most important canal corridors in the nation, so the museum draws on a rich local history to explain a technology that once knit the whole eastern United States together.

The heart of a warm-weather visit is a ride on a restored canal boat, pulled along the towpath by a team of mules just as it was in the 1800s. The boat glides slowly through a preserved section of the Lehigh Canal, and interpreters aboard bring the boatmen's world to life, from the rhythms of lock work to the daily routine of a family living on the water.

Beyond the boat, Hugh Moore Park stretches along the canal and the river, its flat, shaded towpath open for walking and biking. The park protects a genuine working segment of the old canal system, so a stroll along it is a walk through the very landscape the boats once traveled, complete with the locks and lockkeeper's house that kept the water moving.

Summer is the prime season, when the mules are working, the boat is running its rides, and the towpath is green and inviting for a walk or a bike ride along the water. The warm months bring the fullest slate of programs and demonstrations.

Fall adds color along the river corridor and remains a fine time for the towpath, with the boat often running into the early autumn. Winter closes the boat operation, but the frozen or bare towpath still offers a quiet, historic walk, and Easton's downtown attractions carry on year round for those visiting in the colder months.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.