The idea of a waterway crossing the upper Delmarva peninsula was suggested in the 1600s, but the canal did not become a reality until 1829. More than 2,600 workers, including many Irish immigrant and African-American laborers, dug it with picks and shovels for wages of 75¢ a day. They created a 14-mile-long ditch ten feet deep and sixty feet wide, with four locks to carry ships over high and low waters, shortening the water route between Philadelphia and Baltimore by more than 300 miles. At Summit, the highest point on the route, workers cut a huge notch called Deep Cut. The canal opened on October 17, 1829, with great celebrations, and it carried all manner of craft, first mainly horse- and mule-drawn barges and later mostly steam-powered vessels. The United States government purchased the canal from the private corporation in 1919, and by 1927 the Army Corps of Engineers had relocated its Delaware River entrance to Reedy Point, two miles south of Delaware City, and eliminated the need for locks by dredging the waterway into a sea-level passage.