It's easy to drive by the Canal every day and take this bit of water for granted. Its water level rarely causes concern, and its bridges hum with traffic. People run and bike on the towpaths every hour of the day. Ducks and other wildlife make it their home in Broad Ripple. So how did it come to be?

Travel back in time to the mid-1830s with me. Cities like Indianapolis watched the success of the Erie Canal that connected the Hudson River to Lake Erie. The Great Lakes were connected to the Atlantic Ocean in the previous decade and water transportation boomed. (Railroads' heyday was yet to be.) Indiana began studying the feasibility of a canal system to open the commerce byways from Lake Erie to the Ohio River using the natural waterways of the state like the Mississinewa, Wabash, and White Rivers.

So the Indiana Central Canal Project was funded in 1836 with the Internal Improvements Bill for a price tag of $10 million. I can only imagine the politics involved with acquiring land, delegating monies, and planning this project. Our canal was part of the Central Canal Project. Indiana's state capitol would be connected to the world via this waterway. Construction began in three segments: northern, southern, and Indianapolis. Most of the successful construction was concentrated in the Indianapolis section and involved digging 24 miles.

Celebrate June 27, for on this day in 1839 the Canal was filled with water. In 1850 the legislature sold the Canal, which had failed to generate enough money to meet expenses. Since then, owners have included the Indiana Central Canal Manufacturing, Hydraulic & Water Works, the Indiana Central Canal Co., and the current owner, the Indianapolis Water Company. Through the years, unfinished portions of the Canal have vanished and become covered with weeds; some portions were destroyed to make way for the interstate; some of the stone locks have disappeared as did boat basins.

Broad Ripple is a proud host to a bygone era. The towpaths for miles are intact and are part of the Greenway. Some bits of trivia:

• Building the Canal coincided with establishing a community at the ripples of the White River when Jacob Coil purchased land in 1836 from the McKays and Calips on the northside of the Canal. This formed Broad Ripple, and a few months later, the Nelsons platted a community on the south side of the Canal naming this town Wellington.

• The Broad Ripple to Indianapolis portion of the Central Canal was built 60 feet wide and 5 feet deep.

• German and Irish laborers built the Canal.

• The Canal was a source of water power. In the early days its banks were lined with woolen, cotton linseed oil, grist, saw, and paper mills.

• Fairview Park (now Butler) used the waterway for recreation and boating,

• From 1839-47 it was the early source for enterprise, manufacturing, and commerce. The railroads did not arrive until 1847.

For more information about the Canal, check out www.indcanal.org, www.polis.iupui.edu/RUC/Neighborhoods/BroadRipple/BRNarrative.htm and www.broadripplehistory.com. Each day you walk or drive along the Canal, I hope you appreciate those who built it and those who believed in this "ripple." We are lucky, not many villages can claim to be on the shores of a canal!