In November 1829, a canal boat loaded with elected officials arrived in Newport from Mifflintown, drawn by two white horses with an American flag flying, a cannon roaring, and a band playing, officially opening the canal era for the village already called Newport. Despite floods and national depressions, this event began a ninety-year period of economic expansion. Construction of the Juniata Division of the Pennsylvania Canal had begun in 1826 at the confluence of the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers. When the canal reached the headwaters of the Juniata, a steam-driven portage railroad lifted packet boats over the Allegheny Divide and lowered them onto western waters so they could continue to Pittsburgh. The canal era accelerated prosperity for Newport, doubling its population in 20 years and creating its first building boom as hotels, warehouses, and planing mills appeared and the community became Perry County's largest town. For decades the canal and local boatyard businesses employed as many as 100 people, and at times more than 30 packet boats docked nearby. The Pennsylvania Railroad purchased the state-owned, financially struggling canal in 1857 and, although it was a competitor, kept the waterway open. However, the 1889 flood so damaged the Newport portion of the canal that it was never repaired. In 1901 the Canal Company officially ceased operations, and in 1905 the Pennsylvania Railroad constructed a multi-track system over much of the former waterway that had transformed Newport. Remains of the canal can still be found along the Juniata River, though not in Newport.