This week one of the nation’s earliest and most important public works projects, the 363-mile Erie Canal linking the Hudson River with Lake Erie, marked its 200th anniversary.

There was only negligible media and political notice. That’s regrettable, because the canal opening in 1825 utterly transformed the nation’s economy and ignited its expansion from a few sparsely populated former colonies on the Atlantic Coast some 3,000 miles westward to the Pacific Ocean.

Rugged mountains had stymied westward expansion from the coastal plain into the Ohio River valley and the Great Lakes region. But New York Gov. DeWitt Clinton saw an opportunity for New York City to become the nation’s commercial capital, outfoxing rival Philadelphia.

The New York Legislature authorized construction with bonds i

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