National Canal Museum

The National Canal Museum – the only museum in the country dedicated to telling the story of America’s historic towpath canals – is located in beautiful Hugh Moore Park, a 520-acre City of Easton park nestled between the Lehigh Canal and Lehigh River, one of Pennsylvania’s most scenic waterways. The museum occupies the first floor of the Elaine and Peter Emrick Technology Center.

The National Canal Museum interprets the history, science, and technology of canal construction and navigation, through exhibits and hands-on activities. Children and adults can harness a mule, learn how to steer a canal boat, and take part in activities that illustrate how simple machines such as levers and pulleys made work easier for immigrant laborers who built the canals.

The museum has an outstanding collection of scale model canal boats, a water table where visitors young and old can build their own canal system, and exhibits on canal life and canal-related industries that relied on the canals to transport natural resources and manufactured goods.