In 1836, Indiana's Mammoth Internal Improvement Act authorized eight major canal projects on a $10 million loan.

After the Panic of 1837, the state went broke; by 1841 it could no longer make interest payments, and of the eight projects, none were completed by the state and only two were ever finished - by London creditors who took them over.

The Central Canal was supposed to run roughly 300 miles down the middle of the state. Only about 8 miles around Indianapolis were ever built. That stub still exists: it's the Canal Walk downtown, now a beautiful pedestrian promenade. See the picture!

South of the city you can still find unfinished culverts, locks, and an abandoned aqueduct where work stopped in 1839. Anyone got good pics of those? I like the melancholy charm of such things.

Next: the Clinton-Kalamazoo canal, which was supposed to go all way across Michigan!

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@johncarlosbaez You can do Parmigiano too, if you know how. You can't call it with the name for legal reasons, but nothing prevents you to learn how to make it.

My question is more about why. Gondolas make sense in Venice for historical reasons, but make very little sense anywhere else.
People from different places came up with different ways of doing things and different styles, which is why travelling around is interesting.