22. The Main Line and Allegheny Portage Railroad re-emerged in the 20th century
America’s first great canal system, New York’s Erie Canal, continued to be used throughout the 20th century, and continues in use today. Not so Pennsylvania’s Main Line. Gradually the system, ignored by the PRR, was reclaimed by local communities or nature. Some sections were sold to private interests, such as the South Fork Dam above Johnstown. The over 1,000-foot aqueduct which carried canal boats over the Allegheny River into Pittsburgh was dismantled. The Allegheny Portage Railroad was partially dismantled, and for decades was simply an abandoned industrial site atop Cresson Mountain. Vandals and nature gradually erased the evidence of its existence.
In the 1960s the National Park Service took over the site. Finding one engine house relatively intact at the head of incline 6, as well as other scraps of the railroad in place, the Park Service took steps to restore parts of the site. Records of the railroad were sparse. Specifications and design drawings were unavailable, some have never been found. The Lemon House remained standing, but records of its furnishings and appearance in the 1840s were anecdotal. So were most reports of the portage in use during its heyday. Casual mentions in newspapers and magazines from the antebellum era were used to reconstruct how the site appeared and operated.