National Canal Museum

A small but well-curated museum on the upper floors of Two Rivers Landing, dedicated to America's nineteenth-century towpath canals — the Lehigh, the Morris, the Erie. The exhibits cover the mechanics of locks and aqueducts, the lives of canal families, and the economic boom that the canals made possible. There is a working model of a lock you can fill and drain.

The real draw is the Hugh Moore Park half-mile down the road, where the museum operates the only mule-drawn canal boat ride in the United States. Two mules — usually a pair called Hank and George — pull the Josiah White II along a restored section of the Lehigh Canal for about 45 minutes, with crew in period dress and a guide narrating. Boats run May through October, weather permitting.

things to do museum sight
A story
At its 1855 peak the Lehigh Canal moved over a million tons of anthracite coal a year — the energy that powered the early Industrial Revolution in eastern America. By the 1920s railroads had killed the freight business; the last commercial canal boat passed Easton in 1932. The museum keeps the mule-and-rope traditions alive on a restored half-mile of working canal.