On a warm Saturday in mid-May, the fields of Union Canal Tunnel Park in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, fill with the sounds of a community at play: the strum of live music, the chatter of children, and the low, patient hum of a boat gliding through the oldest transportation tunnel in the United States. This is the 37th Annual Union Canal Day, the park's biggest fundraiser of the year.
The event, held Saturday, May 16, 2026, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., is coordinated by the Friends of Union Canal Tunnel Park, the volunteer group that keeps the 110-acre historic site alive. Admission is $5 per car, and visitors pay a fee to ride the narrated canal boat—$10 for adults, $5 for students ages 6 to 17, and free for children 5 and under. The day is built around the kind of wholesome, affordable pleasures that have defined it for nearly four decades: food trucks, craft vendors, a basket raffle, a tent full of inexpensive games for kids, and live entertainment. The Red Creek Wildlife Center brings its animals at 10 a.m., the group One AChord leads a sing-along from noon to 1 p.m., and storyteller Matt Dodd performs songs and stories at 2 and 4 p.m.
The history the park preserves is genuinely remarkable. The Union Canal Tunnel, owned by the Lebanon County Historical Society, is the oldest existing water transportation tunnel in the United States. From 1827 to 1885, the Union Canal connected the commercial centers of Harrisburg, Reading, and, by extension, the port of Philadelphia, carrying goods and passengers through the heart of Pennsylvania. The tunnel itself, dug through the ridge dividing the waters of the Quittapahilla Creek and Clark's Run, was originally 729 feet long. Work began in May 1825 and was completed in June 1827, at a total cost of $30,404.29—a sum that seems impossibly small for a feat of engineering that was, at the time, 'a work almost unknown in this country.' Drilling was done by hand, blasting through argillaceous slate and flinty limestone with gunpowder, eighty feet below the summit of the ridge, at a pace of about five yards a week. The first boat to pass through, The Alpha of Tulpehocken, made the journey on the morning of June 12, 1827, with the boat poled through the tunnel against the ceiling while the mules were led over the top of the ridge.
The canal's heyday did not last. By 1885 the Union Canal had fallen to the railroads, and the tunnel slipped into obscurity. But its story was not over. In the early 1930s, the Civil Works Administration worked to restore the tunnel, and in 1933 the Lebanon County Historical Society secured the right to preserve the engineering monument. The society completed its purchase of the tunnel and adjacent property in 1950. In 1970 the tunnel was designated a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, and on April 19, 1994, it was named a National Historic Landmark by the Secretary of the Interior. The park itself, dedicated in 1988, now encompasses more than 100 acres of recreational and historic land, including the only remaining five-eighths of a mile of the original canal. A major renovation from 1998 to 2000 dredged the canal and restored the North Portal, and the tunnel was opened for its first trip in September 2000. Today, narrated boat tours run on the first two Sundays of the month from June through October, and the park is open year-round from dawn to dusk, with picnic tables, trails, and two connections to the Lebanon Valley Rail Trail.
Union Canal Day itself has a long history. The basket raffle remains a longstanding fundraiser, and the event is designed to be an affordable, family-friendly gathering for the community.
The park's upkeep relies on a dedicated volunteer force. The Friends of the Union Canal Tunnel Park maintain the grounds, keeping the historic site open to the public year-round.
The 37th Annual Union Canal Day is more than a fundraiser. It is a living lesson in how a community holds onto its history, and how the past, when tended with care, keeps drawing people in. Between the basket raffle and the boat tours, the sing-alongs and the live music, the park's oldest story—of ambition, struggle, and ingenuity carved into Pennsylvania stone—gets told once more, to a new generation, on a sunny May afternoon.