Ohio-Erie Canal System Today

Even though the canal systems in the United States have long been discontinued, large sections of the Ohio-Erie Canal System are today important recreational bonanzas for local communities participating in the restoration of the tow-path trails.

One such success is the Ohio & Erie Canalway and the Ohio & Erie Towpath Trail.

Canalway

The Ohio & Erie Canalway is a National Heritage Area: a place to experience trails, trains and scenic byways, canal towns and ethnic neighborhoods, working rivers and great lakes, industrial landscapes and green spaces. Stretching from downtown Cleveland to the Tuscarawas River Valley, the Canalway extends through Cuyahoga, Summit, Stark and Tuscarawas counties.

Towpath Trail

The towpath followed along one side of the canal to provide a path for mules to pull a canal boat along the route. These were handled by young boys who would either ride one of the mules or walk along side. They would be paid about $20 a month.

Today, many of these trails have been converted in paths used by hikers and bikers that can move along the canal.

One of these trails is the Ohio & Erie Towpath Trail. This multi-purpose trail was developed by the National Park Service and is the major trail through Cuyahoga Valley National Park. From it you can make connections to many of the natural and historic sites in the park and to other trails that intersect it along the way.

Canal boat ride at Providence Metro Park

Ohio's
Canal System

As a state, Ohio was only 21 years old when the state legislature authorized funding for an Ohio Canal system in 1825. This wasn't a spur of the moment decision on the legislature's part. In 1822 the legislature commissioned a study to test if it was even possible to build canals across the state. The principal goals of the canals were to serve as big a section of the state's population as possible, connect the Ohio River and Lake Erie, and do it all as quickly and as cheaply as possible without bankrupting the state. No small task. And there was one other thing the proposed canals had to do: satisfy the politicians that would be voting for them. This was perhaps the largest hurdle to overcome.

Prior to the Ohio Canal System, the only way farmers, manufacturers, and people had for getting anywhere were long and poorly constructed roads. By 1817 the National Road had only been completed as far as Wheeling. It would be another 16 years for the road to be completed as far as Columbus.

In 1820 there were estimated to be 580,000 residents living in the state and most of these were involved in agriculture. The problem with the modern agriculture of the day was that they had more produce than they could use. The best way to keep the family farm profitable was to sell the excess harvest to places that didn't have so much agriculture. To do this, a way was needed to get their harvest from here to there as quickly and cheaply as possible. Railroads were not yet an option and not yet even a possibility. The one piece of technology that seemed like a solution was the canal system.

Eight years earlier work had begun on building a canal that connected Lake Erie with the Hudson River and ultimately New York City. That opened lots of possibilities and the opportunity for Ohio's farmers and businessmen to sell their goods to a much larger market if they could get their harvest to the Great Lakes where larger ships could carry the harvest to other markets.

Planning the routes

When Ohio's first canal engineers located the route this new transportation system was to take, they weren't concerned so much with providing the fastest and most direct route between two points, as they were with providing a dependable means of transportation, to as many Ohio residents as possible. Some politicians even went as far as suggesting the most advantageous route would be a diagonal route from the northeast to the southwest Ohio. Such a canal would pass through or near the Ohio's major population centers. This route may have satisfied the most people but it didn't satisfy the engineers.

The proposed canal cut the state's watershed in such a manner that it would have been impossible to supply it with water. A compromise was finally decided upon which resulted in two main canals being built, one in the east and one in the west.

By connecting the Ohio frontier with New York and New Orleans via these two canal systems, the Ohio & Erie Canal and the Miami & Erie Canal helped people and products flow across America, further fueling westward expansion, and providing Ohio with a national market economy and regional industrial opportunities.

Railroads come to Ohio

The dual canal system reached its peak in revenue generation in 1855. At that time the Ohio canal system consisted of almost 1000 miles. It was at this time that railroads were becoming a cheaper and faster way of transporting goods across the country. The increased use of the rail system and later the highway system brought a slow death to the canal system. But it took a natural disaster to completely end the Ohio canal system in March of 1913 when Ohio experienced a record winter snowfall followed by unusually heavy rains in the spring that caused widespread flooding throughout the state. This flooding destroyed many of the canal's raised banks and locks. Ohio's canal system was dead.

Today less than 20% of the original canal system is still owned by the state and this is spread throughout the state in small plots of less than an acre. However, recent interest in the historic canals has attracted the attention of small Ohio communities to use what remains of the canals as attractions. A number of communities have preserved sections of the old canals that provide visitors with glimpses of a bygone era in Ohio's history.

The feeder lakes... today's great water attractions

Several lakes still remain today as a result of Ohio's canal system. St. Marys, Indian Lake, Lake Loramie, Guilford and Buckeye lakes were to be developed as part of the project. These were manmade lakes that helped feed the canal with water during the dry periods. 33,000 acres of reservoir surface were built between 1825 and 1847 to make the Ohio canal system possible.

Buckeye Lake
Construction began in 1826 and completed in 1830. At that time is was called the Licking Summit Reservoir. It didn't become known as Buckeye Lake until 1894 when the Ohio General Assembly established these feeder lakes as state parks.

Guildford Lake
Guilford Lake was constructed as a canal feeder reservoir for the Sandy and Beaver Canal in 1834. The Sandy and Beaver Canal was one of many feeder canals. The Sandy and Beaver Canal was a feeder to the Ohio and Erie Canal and is located in Columbiana County.

Grand Lake
In 1837, work commenced on the reservoir for the Miami-Erie canal to maintain the canal’s 4' water depth. Workers using hand tools were paid 35 cents a day and a jigger of whiskey to keep malaria away. At its completion in 1845, 13,500-acre Grand Lake was the largest man-made lake in the world. The lake was connected to the canal by a 3 mile feeder canal.

Lake Loramie
Lake Loramie was originally constructed in 1844-45 as a storage reservoir for the Miami-Erie Canal system. A short feeder canal connected Lake Loramie with the main canal. Lake Loramie is located south east of Grand Lake St. Marys.

Indian Lake
Indian Lake was built in 1851 as a feeder lake for the Miami and Erie Canal to maintain the required 4' water depth throughout the canal system

Ohio's Dual Canals

Ohio's first major canal was the Ohio & Erie Canal. This was actually a system of canals that included branches. The second canal system would eventually be the Miami & Erie Canal, but initial plans called for something entirely different.

After the Erie Canal was under construction in New York, the idea of building several canals in Ohio were also being debated. The Ohio and Erie Canal that ran through eastern Ohio had already begun construction. Ideas for a second canal were still being discussed. DeWitt Clinton, the surveyor and driving force behind the Erie Canal was proposing a canal be built from the Portage River and go south to the Ohio River. That canal would be called the Sandusky-Scioto Canal.

However, politics and economics put the plan on hold. The Sandusky-Scioto Canal would have gone through Columbus (the new capitol) and Chillicothe (the old capitol) and connected with Ohio River at Portsmouth. Politicians (including important politicians in the Dayton / Cincinnati area) said they would be left out of the economic development that the canal would certainly bring to those areas being served. After further study and surveying the engineers decided that there would not be enough water to supply the canal that would have to be built to connect the two rivers (Portage / Scioto). The decision was made to move the 2nd canal further west so it started in Cincinnati, ran up through Dayton and on to Toledo.

This decision made the politicians in both Central Ohio and the Chillicothe area a bit upset. So the decision was made to change the route of the Ohio & Erie Canal, and have it turn west about midway so that it skirted Columbus and then moved on to Chillicothe and Portsmouth. This made everyone happy except the folks in southeastern Ohio, particularly in Marietta.

The Ohio Canals