There is no doubt that the American ritual of the summer vacation became de rigeur with the expansion of the Interstate Highway System beginning in the late 1950s. With the new, easily accessible highways with easy-to-find exits came new, easily accessible hotels with easy-to-find rooms and swimming pools. Tourist destinations were suddenly mandatory as tax boosters for all states. Resorts such as Disneyland and later Walt Disney World created destinations for families with kids. Of course, a dissident minority which shunned the crowds and the hoopla sprang up as well, traveling to state and national parks and campgrounds, determined to relax while getting away from it all in the company of their fellow campers.
Although the summer vacation reached its maturity in the post-World War II days along with the baby boom, it wasn’t born then. Well before the 20th century, Americans traveled for leisure, on necessarily extended breaks from home and work, and they often gathered at communal locales favored by their fellow travelers. They journeyed by rail, coach and boat, enjoying the scenery, the history, and the cuisine of the areas to which they sojourned, and their tours frequently added to the education of their children, and in some instances the readers of their travelogues. Here then are ten travel destinations favored by vacationing Americans (and some foreign tourists) prior to the year 1900.
The Allegheny Portage Railroad
When it opened in 1834, after ten years of construction the Allegheny Portage Railroad, a series of inclines over which canal boats were hauled over the barrier of the Allegheny Mountain Range in Pennsylvania, was an engineering marvel. The Portage reduced the travel time from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh to as little as three days in good weather. While many used it for the convenience of shortening their trip to other destinations, others went to see it as a destination itself.
Originally passengers and cargo being hauled on the canal boats were transferred to portage wagons to be hauled over the inclines using mules and draft horses. The animals were later replaced with stationary steam engines, pulling the cars using wire ropes perfected by John Roebling. He would later use similar cables to build suspension bridges, including one in Brooklyn. Eventually, the canal boats themselves were hauled out of the water, passengers aboard, and returned to the canal on the other side of the incline to continue their journey.
Inns and taverns were soon in place on both sides of the incline, to provide succor and nutrition to tired passengers and off-duty boatmen and workers. The incline operated day and night in season, and tourists flocked to the sight to watch the belching steam engines haul boats up and brake them down on their descent. Other tourists enjoyed the ride, among them Charles Dickens, who left a vivid description of his visit in his American Notes.
The incline was unable to compete when direct railroad connections were completed beginning in the late 1840s, and by the mid-1850s operated no longer, although the canals remained as local infrastructure in many places.
The Allegheny Portage Railroad was one of the first pieces of American infrastructure built to serve ease of travel between destinations which became a travel destination of its own. Parts of it remain today as a National Historic Site favored by hikers and campers.