200 YEARS AGO, THE ERIE CANAL OPENED AND AMERICA WAS NEVER THE SAME: “The Erie Canal not only transformed America, but, by allowing for the export of massive amounts of Midwestern farm products to Europe, American farmers drove a large number of small farmers in Europe out of business. Many of them made their way to America…In two decades, more freight was moving down the Erie Canal than was being floated down the Mississippi River from the Midwest to New Orleans. It would be an exaggeration to say that the Erie Canal created modern America, but it’s hard to imagine America today without it.”