Building of the Whitewater Canal began at Brookville, Indiana in 1836. By 1839 costs had bankrupt the state and construction stopped for three years. When completed in 1847, the canal spanned seventy-six miles from Lawrenceburg, Indiana to Hagerstown, Indiana. With the coming of the railroad shipment of freight on the canal dropped off and within only eighteen years it no longer carried commercial traffic. However parts of the canal remained in use suppling hydraulic power to run local mills. In 1946 restoration was begun on a 14 mile section that would become the Whitewater Canal State Historic Site.