Silver Creek Canal Remnants & Legend

Please stay on the U.S. 24 bridge above Silver Creek. Much of what you can see is private property.

The stone arch and broad straight & smooth grassland running east towards Huntington comprise a remnant of the Erie & Wabash canal. The arch was restored around 2012 by the property owner. It is all that remains of the towpath of over Silver Creek.

Canal aqueducts can bend your mind a bit since they represent a water “road” going over a natural water way. They are also sometimes called water bridges.

According to an 1897 news article, Silver Creek received its name after a theft of silver that was to be used to pay the Native Americans in accordance with the treaty. One box of silver coins went missing. After much looking and interrogation of one of the members of the party, the box was found in the little stream that flowed through the northeastern part of Lagro Township and Huntington County covered by some flat rocks.

The Wabash & Erie Canal website explains the aqueduct works: “The purpose of an aqueduct is to carry the canal and its towpath over a river, a ravine, a railroad, or a road. Typically, the towpath is carried across an aqueduct on stone arches, while the canal itself is carried across in an adjacent heavily-braced wooden trough resting on stone piles.”

The arch began as a wooden structure over Woodworth’s Creek (later named Silver Creek) but in the 1850s was changed to a stone structure to improve and strengthen the structure. In 1984, a newspaper article spoke of the Silver Creek bridge/aqueduct to be over grown with trees and shrubs. Richard Ness, who owns the land, worked to restore and preserve the bridge structure. In 2013, Mr. Ness received the Virginia R. Miller Award from the Huntington County Historical Society. 

1. “Silver Creek,” The Daily News- Democrat [Huntington IN], 21 Aug 1897.
2. “Making it Work,” eriecanal.org, accessed 15 May 2022. https://www.eriecanal.org/UnionCollege/The_Aqueduct.html
3. “Quest of quell flooding leads local man to history preservation,” The TAB [Huntington IN], 2 Dec 2013.
4. “Take a Motor tour on the Wabash Erie Canal towpath trail,” wecanalcorridortour.blogspot.com, accessed 14 May 2022. http://wecanalcorridortour.blogspot.com/2008/11/take-motor-tour-on-wabash-erie-canal.html
5. Meeks, Thomas & Julia, Profile of the Wabash & Erie Canal, Anthony Wayne Printing, 1984.
6. Historic pictures of Huntington County. 1988. Diffenbaugh, Robert, Joan Keefer, and George Bachnivsky. Huntington, IN: Huntington Alert,