Frequently Asked Questions
The Illinois & Michigan Canal is a 96-mile long man-made and hand-dug waterway stretching from Chicago to LaSalle, Illinois, which connects Lake Michigan to the Illinois River. The opening of the Illinois & Michigan Canal in 1848 made Chicago and northern Illinois the key crossroads of the American mid-continent. The dream of the canal had animated every vision and under laid every plan for Illinois for over 200 years. As that vision was realized, the canal’s commissioners laid out a canal port that would grow into a great metropolis. Their fellow citizens patented agriculture and industrial innovations that would make this the richest economic zone the world had ever seen. That Illinois is now the most populous inland American state, and Chicago the greatest city of the American heartland, is directly traceable to the canal that linked the Great Lakes to the Illinois and Mississippi rivers.
When the I&M Canal opened in 1848, it was the final link in an all-water route connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. The canal, designed to be 60 feet wide and 6 feet deep, drops 141.3 feet between Chicago and LaSalle and consists of 15 locks, 4 feeder canals (Calumet, DuPage, Kankakee, and Fox) and 4 aqueducts. Commercial traffic on the canal utilized 9 canal basins, 12 widewaters, sundry backwaters, 3 lateral canals, and 2 hydraulic basins. Eleven significant towns developed along the I&M Canal, six of them founded by the canal commissioners, including: Ottawa, Chicago, LaSalle, Lockport, DuPage/Channahon, and Morris. (For more information view Part 2 of A Roadmap for the Future on the PLAN Page)
National Heritage Corridors are places where natural, cultural, historic and scenic resources combine to form a cohesive, nationally important landscape arising from patterns of human activity shaped by geography. These patterns make National Heritage Corridors representative of the American experience through the physical features that remain -- and the traditions that have evolved -- in them. These regions are acknowledged by Congress for their capacity to tell important stories about our nation. Continued use of National Heritage Corridors by people whose traditions helped to shape the landscape enhances their significance.
The Illinois & Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor was the first in the nation designated in 1984; this 862 square mile linear zone in northern Illinois includes 57 communities. The purpose of the IMCNHC is to retain, enhance, and interpret, for the benefit and inspiration of present and future generations, the cultural, historical, natural, recreational, and economic resources of the heritage corridor.
The Canal Corridor Association (CCA) is a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization managed by a board of directors and a professional staff. Formerly the Upper Illinois Valley Association (UIVA), the organization was formed by business and community leaders from northeastern Illinois to promote the federal designation of the Illinois & Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor. After the Illinois & Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor was established by President Ronald Reagan on August 24, 1984, the Canal Corridor Association spent the next twenty years working within the heritage corridor to fulfill its mission to: preserve history, protect nature and open space, create destinations where people can learn and have fun in the I&M Canal National Heritage Corridor. Congress designated the Canal Corridor Association as the local coordinating entity for the Illinois & Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor in 2006. Canal Corridor Association’s board of directors has direct fiduciary responsibility for the funds received from the federal government.
A National Heritage Area designation places an invisible overlay upon a living landscape, and some residents choose to perform specific actions to create and maintain their nationally important cohesive story, a story that is shaped by the region’s individual parts. To assure that this invisible overlay is established and nurtured, the heritage area’s public law also establishes a “coordinating entity.” While individual municipalities, nonprofits, universities, businesses and industries continue operating as usual, the coordinating entity – typically a nonprofit, university or federal commission – focuses on the area’s national story, coordinating local efforts to collectively preserve and share their unique national story for a stronger future and to educate local, regional and even national audiences. By bringing together those ongoing or newly initiated individual efforts, long term collaborations are formed and nurtured to enhance a stronger and more sustainable future. Representing the landscape as a whole, whenever residents gather to establish mutual goals and opportunities, the coordinating entity maintains focus on unifying objectives they facilitate through public dialogs. Without this perspective and overall coordination, the national relevance of the story -- and many of the key locations representing that story -- may remain hidden or only quietly noted for many more generations. In many cases, relevant sites disappear for good. Living landscapes are always evolving and the region’s national voice is maintained and continuously nurtured by it unique one-of-a-kind story. Some of this important work is also nurtured with the addition of federal funds, which are administered by the coordinating entity.
The Canal Alliance is a group of self-selected stakeholders that sign an Alliance membership agreement to work towards the vision and mission of the heritage corridor and agrees to abide by its guiding principles. Each Alliance member identifies what resources they contribute annually to the local investment. The Canal Alliance is the community of dedicated people that will cause the projects, programs, fundraising and activities in the IMCNHC to be completed.
The Alliance Committee is a committee of the Canal Corridor Association. It oversees the implementation and ongoing operations of the Canal Alliance’s programs, projects, activities, fundraising, and working groups.
Initially five in number, each Resource Committee represents a distinct program area and has multiple responsibilities of a continuing nature; such as engaging the Canal Alliance community and the citizenry of the IMCNHC and gathering the expertise needed for good decision-making in creating needed programming, projects and activities. Any resource committee can be eliminated, replaced or revised, as needed, by a vote of the Alliance Committee.
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