The remains of the Lehigh Canal’s Lock 28 and Dam 19 mark a major engineering effort that helped carry anthracite coal to markets in Philadelphia and New York. High lift locks like this one lowered boats loaded with more than a hundred tons of coal by as much as 30 feet, and with higher locks and wider, deeper channels, the canal fulfilled the expansive vision of Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company managers Josiah White and Erskine Hazard. Building these massive locks, along with the canal’s channel, dams, and locktender’s houses, required hundreds of workers. Josiah White wrote that laborers came “from all nations,” including large contingents from Germany, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. He often worked beside them and learned firsthand of the need for strong shoes with holes cut in the toe to let out water, and although neither he nor the workers knew anything about blasting at first, he recalled that they were lucky to lose only two men.