Mules are back in business in New Hope.
The Delaware River Canal Boat Co. launched its mule-towed barge business two weeks ago to replace the New Hope Boat Co., which closed after September's floods.
Co-owner Jerry Horan, who owns the 300-year-old Centre Bridge Inn along the canal in Solebury, says he bought the business to preserve part of what makes this river-town attractive.
Starting the company "wasn't driven by a business opportunity," he said. The company "adds that great experience of what it is to live here. We would have lost that charm."
The company also offers the area a lesson in history, including for school groups that use the boats in the spring, he said.
The company's two boats - named after Horan's daughters Olivia Morgan and Isabelle Justice - make 4-mile round trips on a recently repaired section of the canal in New Hope. Mules pull the barges while historian-captains tell the history of the 60-mile canal, once a road of commerce.
Canal boat rides for recreation have been offered since the 1950s, said Horan, who co-owns the business with his wife, Tina, and father-in-law Bill Jerome.
"We're happy to have another vendor take over the business," said John Wiediger, chief of operations for the state's Department of Conservation and Natural Resources' bureau of state parks, which oversees the Delaware Canal State Park. "Hopefully we'll see bigger and better things from the new vendor."
The former owners backed out of their license agreement after the September flood caused significant damage to the canal. The damage was then made worse by April's flood. Wiediger said the owners said the business was not "as lucrative as they expected it to be." Attempts to locate the former owners were unsuccessful.
Much of the canal is still dry but the new company is paying to pump water into a 4- to 5-mile stretch, between New Hope and Centre Bridge, with a dam and lock holding the water in. The company is located at 149 S. Main St. and next to the Lock Tender's House, where the Friends of the Delaware Canal tell visitors about the life of a lock tender, he said.
Heron said some company changes and state restorations to the canal system should help him make a go of the business. The boats have been restored and spruced up with fresh paint. Lock No. 11, though not operating, has been repaired. "We're hoping to be able to make it work as soon as possible," Wiediger said of the lock located just south of the company's business.
The new owners opened a mercantile shop that sells company merchandise and food for the ride. The store "gives the people a little more of an experience."
So far interest has been high, he said.
"The flurry of business has been great," he said.
Over the Memorial Day weekend the company got twice the number of riders anticipated. "We were doing an average 100 persons a day."
On weekends the company runs four trips a day, the first 85-seat boat leaving at noon, the last at 4:40 p.m., Horan said.
The company does offer other kinds of large group rides, including for private parties and marriage proposals.
Pamela Batzel can be reached at (215) 345-3062 or pbatzel@phillyBurbs.com.
A new company will run mule-towed barges on the New Hope Canal after a previous operator failed to reopen from the fall and spring floods. The Delaware River Canal Boat Co. launched its business to replace the New Hope Boat Co., which closed after September's floods. Mules pull two boats on 4-mile round trips on a recently repaired section of the canal in New Hope as historian-captains tell the history of the 60-mile canal. "We would have lost that charm," said Jerry Horan, co-owner of the canal boat company and owner of the 300-year-old Centre Bridge Inn on the canal at Solebury. The 85-seat boats make four trips a day on weekends, and the company averaged 100 riders a day during the Memorial Day weekend, Horan said. - AP
