Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway, Troy - attractions, tourist attractions, city attractions, area attractions, main attractions, major attractions, landmarks, sights, poin

Burden Iron Works Museum
Foot of Polk Street
Troy, NY 12180

The Hudson-Mohawk region all around Albany, Schenectady, and Troy was the Silicon Valley of the nineteenth century, and thus in many ways it was North America's original model for how the entrepreneurial use of cutting-edge technology can foster regional economic prosperity. The eastern terminus of the Erie Canal, finished in 1825, was here. The first railroad line designed specifically for use by steam locomotives connected Albany and Schenectady. Henry Burden, a Scottish immigrant who took over a nationally-ranked iron works in South Troy in the early 1800s, was the inventor of the "hook-head" railroad spike that is now in common usage.