The Erie Canal Museum occupies the 1850 Weighlock Building, the only surviving canal boat weigh station in existence. The museum tells the story of the 363-mile canal that connected the Hudson River to Lake Erie when it opened in 1825, transforming New York City into the dominant port of the eastern seaboard and triggering one of the great migrations in American history as settlers poured west along the new waterway.
A full-scale replica of a canal boat sits inside the building, and exhibits trace the lives of the boatmen, their families, and the mule-drivers who walked the towpaths. Syracuse owed its growth entirely to the canal — it was a swamp before the canal came through, and the salt springs it connected to the outside world made it wealthy. A visit here makes the city's strange geography legible. Open Tuesday to Sunday.