Power Along the Canal Exhibit

The Power Along the Canal Exhibit, formerly the Steam Engine Exhibit, will open on Sunday, May 3, 2026. After it will be open every Saturday from 12 – 4 pm through October. We are looking for volunteers so if you love machines & want to share your knowledge with the public, please reach out for more info!

The Power Along the Canal Exhibit honors how things moved along the Erie Canal, first by mules and horses and later by steam. Steam-powered machinery also drove the industrialization of Syracuse and surrounding areas, and those stories will be told within the exhibit.

With the announcement in 1998 of the plans to demolish the former L.C. Smith Typewriter Company plant on Washington Street in Syracuse, the community was poised to lose an icon of its manufacturing past. The building still housed the Corliss steam engine that had generated power for the Company beginning in 1913. At the critical moment when most such artifacts are lost forever, the Camillus Canal Society proposed a plan to remove the engine and exhibit it at the Camillus Erie Canal Town Park.

The City of Syracuse made an inter-municipal gift of the engine to the Town of Camillus, and the volunteers of the Camillus Canal Society went to work to create a new building in which to house and restore the engine.

Power plus the Erie Canal allowed New York State and our region to flourish. Come see how it started in the place where it happened.

History

A Corliss steam engine is a steam engine invented by and named after the American engineer George Henry Corliss.

Corliss engines were generally about 30 percent more fuel efficient than conventional steam engines.

This increased efficiency made steam power more economical than water power, allowing industrial development away from millponds.