Bald Eagle and Spring Creek Navigation

The Bald Eagle and Spring Creek Navigation Company was a canal company in central Pennsylvania intended to link the iron industry of Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, with the Pennsylvania canal system. Opened for half its length in 1837, the remainder of the canal was not completed until 1848. Destroyed by flooding in 1865, it was not rebuilt; a paralleling railroad completed that year replaced it.Charter and constructionThe company was incorporated to build a canal from Flemington, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Lock Haven, to Bellefonte on April 14, 1834. Lock Haven was the terminus of the West Branch Canal, part of Pennsylvania's state-owned canal system following the West Branch Susquehanna River. The canal was planned to follow Bald Eagle Creek southwest through its valley as far as Milesburg, and then turn south to follow Spring Creek through its water gap in Bald Eagle Mountain to Bellefonte, center of the local iron industry. In theory, this entire route was navigable—residents of Bellefonte were said to have dragged a flatboat up Spring Creek in order to prove the town the head of navigation and beat out Milesburg as the county seat of Centre County in 1800—but in practice, improvements were necessary to facilitate the heavy traffic in iron from the furnaces.