The Beaver Division of the Pennsylvania Canal System was a major early development in Beaver County, combining canal and slack water navigation from the mouth of the Beaver River to Harbor Bridge near New Castle, where it joined the Erie Extension Canal and linked Beaver County’s manufacturing centers to the Great Lakes region. Groundbreaking began in July 1831 near New Brighton, and the canal opened in December 1834 with nine locks and three dams in Beaver County. Its entrance was at Rochester, where two locks completed in 1833 raised and lowered boats around Dam No. 6 between Rochester and Bridgewater. Designated Locks 16 and 17 and named for Stephen Girard, who donated $300,000 to improve canal navigation in Pennsylvania, they were built larger than standard locks to accommodate small steamboats from the Ohio River. A typical lock on the canal measured 15 feet wide by 90 feet long, while the Girard Locks measured 25 feet wide by 120 feet long. Cargo arriving there was transferred to the public wharf along Water Street for shipment onward. The Beaver Division Canal remained in use until the 1870's, when railroads became the primary means of commercial transportation, and part of the Girard Locks still remains visible below the Bridgewater-Rochester Bridge.