Description: This image shows a canal boat named "St. Louis of Dayton" on the Miami Canal Basin, Dayton, Ohio, ca. 1850. Men are standing on the roof of the hold, and kegs or barrels are arranged in rows on the roof. Also visible in the image is a warehouse owned by Robert Chambers, which was located on the east side of the basin between First and Third Streets. The Miami Canal, which connected Cincinnati to Dayton, was the first segment of the Miami and Erie Canal to be completed. It was constructed between 1825 and 1829. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06116
Subjects: Canals--Ohio--History--19th century; Miami and Erie Canal (Ohio)--History; Dayton (Ohio); Montgomery County (Ohio); Waterville (Ohio); Miami Canal (Ohio); Ohio Economy--Transportation and Development
Places: Dayton (Ohio); Montgomery County (Ohio)
 

Description: This photograph shows Rupp’s Canal Store on the Miami and Erie Canal in Waterville, Ohio, in the 1880s. The building is a three-story structure situated on a boardwalk running along the canal. A canal boat is moored in front of the store, tied to a hitching post on the boardwalk. A man and a young child (facing the camera) are standing near the store. Rupp’s Canal Store was opened in 1854 by Orrin Gillett and William Dyer. Over the years it has several owners until purchased by Jacob Rupp, who renamed it Rupp’s Canal Store. It was one of the busiest places of commerce in Waterville during the canal era. The completion of the Miami and Erie Canal through Waterville in 1843 began a short-lived prosperous era for the village. Businesses mushroomed along its banks, and Westerville’s business center shifted from Main Street (now River Road) to Third Street, where it remains today. Most canals remained in operation in Ohio until the late 1800s. By the 1850s canals were losing business to the railroads, which offered several advantages. Railroads delivered passengers and goods more quickly, and they were not limited by a water source as canals were. Because of these advantages, railroads quickly supplanted the canals. The Miami and Erie Canal, connecting Toledo to Cincinnati, joined the Wabash and Erie Canal to Indiana. The Waterville section of the canal was completed in 1843. Boats pulled by mules or horses walking on the canal banks hauled farm products, commercial goods, and people. In 1851 there were approximately 400 boats operating on the canal. Hotels, stores, and mills sprung up along its banks. Canal operations ceased in 1909 as railroads and automobiles became faster and cheaper means of travel. During the 1930s and 1940s the canal bed was filled in to become the Anthony Wayne Trail, U. S. Route 24 View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06113
Subjects: Canals--Ohio--History--19th century; Miami and Erie Canal (Ohio)--History; Lucas County (Ohio); Waterville (Ohio); Ohio Economy--Transportation and Development
Places: Waterville (Ohio); Lucas County (Ohio)
 

Description: Dated ca. 1935-1940, this photograph shows a waterfall and small building along the Ohio and Erie Canal near Circleville, Ohio. Today a three mile stretch of the canal remains near Circleville. Work began on the Ohio and Erie Canal on July 4, 1825, at Licking Summit, just south of Newark, Ohio, and was completed in 1833. The Ohio and Erie Canal cost approximately ten thousand dollars per mile to complete, and the Miami and Erie Canal cost roughly twelve thousand dollars per mile to finish. The canals nearly bankrupted the state government, but they allowed Ohioans to prosper beginning in the 1830s all the way to the Civil War. Many recent immigrants to the United States, especially the Irish, survived thanks to jobs on the canals. Other people, like the residents of the communal society at Zoar, also helped construct canals to assist the survival of their community. Many of Ohio’s communities today, including Akron, began as towns for the canal workers. Most canals remained in operation in Ohio until the late 1800s. There is a short stretch in the Muskingum Valley near Zanesville still in operation today. By the 1850s, however, canals were losing business to the railroads. This photograph is one of the many visual materials collected for use in the Ohio Guide. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration by executive order to create jobs for the large numbers of unemployed laborers, as well as artists, musicians, actors, and writers. The Federal Arts Program, a sector of the Works Progress Administration, included the Federal Writers’ Project, one of the primary goals of which was to complete the America Guide series, a series of guidebooks for each state which included state history, art, architecture, music, literature, and points of interest to the major cities and tours throughout the state. Work on the Ohio Guide began in 1935 with the publication of several pamphlets and brochures. The Reorganization Act of 1939 consolidated the Works Progress Administration and other agencies into the Federal Works Administration, and the Federal Writers’ Project became the Federal Writers’ Project in Ohio. The final product was published in 1940 and went through several editions. The Ohio Guide Collection consists of 4,769 photographs collected for use in Ohio Guide and other publications of the Federal Writers’ Project in Ohio from 1935-1939. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B10F13_001_001
Subjects: Canals--Ohio; Circleville (Ohio)--History; Miami and Erie Canal (Ohio)--History; Geography and Natural Resources; Transportation--Ohio--History.; Ohio--History--Pictorial works; Federal Writers' Project
Places: Circleville (Ohio); Pickaway County (Ohio)
 

Description: Dated ca. 1935-1940, this photograph shows a waterfall and small building along the Ohio and Erie Canal near Circleville, Ohio. Today, a three mile stretch of the canal remains near Circleville. Work began on the Ohio and Erie Canal on July 4, 1825, at Licking Summit, just south of Newark, Ohio, and was completed in 1833. The Ohio and Erie Canal cost approximately ten thousand dollars per mile to complete, and the Miami and Erie Canal cost roughly twelve thousand dollars per mile to finish. The canals nearly bankrupted the state government, but they allowed Ohioans to prosper beginning in the 1830s all the way to the Civil War. Many recent immigrants to the United States, especially the Irish, survived thanks to jobs on the canals. Other people, like the residents of the communal society at Zoar, also helped construct canals to assist the survival of their community. Many of Ohio’s communities today, including Akron, began as towns for the canal workers. Most canals remained in operation in Ohio until the late 1800s. There is a short stretch in the Muskingum Valley near Zanesville still in operation today. By the 1850s, however, canals were losing business to the railroads. This photograph is one of the many visual materials collected for use in the Ohio Guide. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration by executive order to create jobs for the large numbers of unemployed laborers, as well as artists, musicians, actors, and writers. The Federal Arts Program, a sector of the Works Progress Administration, included the Federal Writers’ Project, one of the primary goals of which was to complete the America Guide series, a series of guidebooks for each state which included state history, art, architecture, music, literature, and points of interest to the major cities and tours throughout the state. Work on the Ohio Guide began in 1935 with the publication of several pamphlets and brochures. The Reorganization Act of 1939 consolidated the Works Progress Administration and other agencies into the Federal Works Administration, and the Federal Writers’ Project became the Federal Writers’ Project in Ohio. The final product was published in 1940 and went through several editions. The Ohio Guide Collection consists of 4,769 photographs collected for use in Ohio Guide and other publications of the Federal Writers’ Project in Ohio from 1935-1939. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B10F13_006_001
Subjects: Canals--Ohio; Circleville (Ohio)--History; Miami and Erie Canal (Ohio)--History; Geography and Natural Resources; Transportation--Ohio--History.; Ohio--History--Pictorial works; Federal Writers' Project
Places: Circleville (Ohio); Pickaway County (Ohio)
 

Description: Caption reads "Cincinnati, Ohio. Miami and Erie Canal at Plum and Twelfth Street about 1860." This photograph (ca. 1935-1943) is of a drawing or lithograph of the Miami and Erie Canal in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. The Miami and Erie Canal connected the Ohio River in Cincinnati and Lake Erie in Toledo and was completed in 1845. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B03F01_033_001
Subjects: Cincinnati (Ohio--History; Canals--Ohio; Miami and Erie Canal (Ohio)--History; Illustrations; Geography and Natural Resources; Transportation--Ohio--History.; Ohio--History--Pictorial works; Federal Writers' Project
Places: Cincinnati (Ohio); Hamilton County (Ohio)
 

Description: This photograph shows a section of the Miami and Erie Canal in Auglaize County, Ohio, that still remained in 1964. The Miami and Erie Canal was one of Ohio's most important canals during the mid-nineteenth century. During the late 1810s, Governor Thomas Worthington and Governor Ethan Allen Brown both supported the development of canals. They believed that Ohioans needed quick and easy access to the Ohio River and to Lake Erie if they were to profit financially. Farmers and business owners would be able to transport their products much more easily and cheaply with canals rather than turnpikes. Canals would also possibly open up new markets for Ohio goods. In 1822 the Ohio legislature created a new Ohio Canal Commission, which eventually recommended two routes: a western route along the Miami and Maumee Valleys (Miami and Erie Canal) and a route that started at Lake Erie, passing through the Cuyahoga Valley, the Muskingum Valley, the Licking Valley, and then to the Ohio River along the Scioto Valley (Ohio and Erie Canal). In 1825 the Ohio legislature approved both routes, and on July 21, 1825, work began at Middletown on the Miami and Erie Canal. To finance the canals, the Ohio government relied on loans. Ohio received an initial loan of $400,000 from bankers and businessmen living along the East Coast. The canal commissioners estimated that the Miami and Erie Canal would cost $ 2.9 million, but it actually cost roughly $12,000 per mile to finish. Although the construction of both canals nearly bankrupted the state government, the canals allowed Ohioans to prosper, beginning in the 1830s all the way to the Civil War. Once completed, however, the canals still faced numerous difficulties. The effects of flooding and freezing could and often did seriously damage the canals. Usually canals in the northern half of the state were drained dry from November to April. These difficulties paled in comparison to the advantages of having the canals. The cost to ship goods from the East Coast to Ohio and vice versa declined steeply, from $125 per ton of goods to $25 per ton of goods. Travelers who were willing to trade time for economy could save considerable money by taking a canal boat. Most canals remained in operation in Ohio until the late 1800s. By the 1850s canals were losing business to the railroads, which offered several advantages. Railroads delivered passengers and goods more quickly, and they were not limited by a water source as canals were. Because of these advantages, railroads quickly supplanted the canals. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06107
Subjects: Canals--Ohio--History--19th century; Miami and Erie Canal (Ohio)--History; Auglaize County (Ohio); Ohio Economy--Transportation and Development
Places: Auglaize County (Ohio)
 

Description: Reverse says: "Central Parkway now and how it looked in Canal days." Steeped in history, this parkway of 23.8 acres extends for 4.5 miles from downtown to the edge of Cumminsville - from Broadway and Reading Road, turning right at Plum, to Liberty, to Harrison and the Western Hills Viaduct, to its terminal at Ludlow, below Mt. Storm Park. It was acquired in 1931 by the Park Board from the Board of Rapid Transit Commissions. Trees and shrubs were planted - those of a variety to endure the atmospheric and soil conditions of the downtown section, particularly the English maple, the Oriental plane tree, and the elm - three types found to be best fitted for growth in metropolitan confines. The English maples were moved to Ault Park and replaced by crabapples when the parkway islands were narrowed. London plane tree replaced most of the oriental plane trees and red oak, the elms. During the construction of Central Parkway, many gifts of trees were made. These are a part of landscape now so familiar to Parkway travelers. The Daughters of the American Revolution placed at the Central Parkway and Ludlow Avenue intersection a bronze tablet in memory of Major General Arthur St. Clair, who was an officer in the Revolutionary War, first governor of the Northwest Territory, and the man who gave Cincinnati its name. A historical marker, erected under the Ohio Revolutionary Memorial Commission's plan, stands at Central Parkway and Sycamore where the two Ohio trails branched. Reading Road following the marches of Bowman, Clark, Harmar, Harrison, Clay and Shelby; and Central Parkway folloing the route of St. Clair and Mad Anthony Wayne - brave names in those days of pioneer drumbeat and marching soldiers and frontiersmen in buckskin. The old Miami and Erie Canal which came later on the Central Parkway site did not erase those indelible footsteps from history. The canal itself is gone, a small remnant left of the $6,000,000 project started in 1825 to provide a 244-mile waterway between Cincinnati and Toledo. Yet the old canal, too, is remembered by a marker commemorating it at Central Parkway and Ezzard Charles Drive. Here was the site of a major medium of commerce. Here was the "Rhine," the boundary of the Over-the-Rhine section where Cincinnatians, in a wide-open city, crossed the Vine Street Bridge to the other side of the canal, listened to the little German bands and drank beer in their favorite saloons of the carved-mahogany-bar variety. There was the oom-pah-pah of the music and the clack of man-sized mugs, as the citizens fondled handle-bar moustaches and discussed the canal traffic. In the old canal, many of the notables of Cincinnati went for a swim in their boyhood days, and they loved every single minute of it. Central Parkway is one of the major parkways in a citywide network envisioned in the 1907 park plan by George Kessler. Extending along the former route of the old Miami & Erie Canal, central Parkway was developed in conjunction with a rapid transit railway, which was to run in a tunnel created in the old canal bed. Construction of the railway began in 1920, but ceased in 1927 when funds ran out. The system was never completed because the growing popularity of the automobile greatly diminished the need or desire for mass rail transit. When it was dedicated in 1928, Central Parkway featured broad central islands with concrete walks, trees, benches, ornamental street lamps and circular ventilators for the subway below. This scheme was mush simpler than that proposed by Kessler. In the 1950s, increasing auto traffic led to widening the roadways at the expense of the medians and fixtures, with the exception of the streetlights. In 1990, the remaining medians were replanted. Between main and Sycamore Streets, an historic marker capped with a silhouette of a Conestoga Wagon party marks the confluence of two 18th-century military trails. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B04F02_01_01
Subjects: Historical markers--Ohio--Cincinnati; Parks--Ohio--Cincinnati; Canals--Ohio--History; Miami and Erie Canal (Ohio); Waterways--Canals--Miami & Erie Canal; Central Parkway Area (Cincinnati, Ohio)
Places: Cincinnati (Ohio); Hamilton County (Ohio)
 

Description: View of the Miami and Erie Canal north of Bank Street in Cincinnati, Ohio, ca. 1920-1928. In the early 1920s, construction began on the Cincinnati Central Parkway over the former bed of the Miami and Erie Canal. The canal bed was deepened to form the tube for a rapid-transit subway that was never completed. This project was partly financed by the Ohio Department of Public Works, who documented it in a series of photographs between 1920 and 1928. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA937AV_B01F02_030
Subjects: Transportation--Ohio--History; Ohio. Dept. of Public Works; Miami and Erie Canal (Ohio)--History; Central Parkway Area (Cincinnati, Ohio)
Places: Cincinnati (Ohio); Hamilton County (Ohio)
 

Description: Photograph of construction of the Liberty Street subway station under the old Miami and Erie canal bed in Cincinnati, Ohio, ca. 1920-1928. Construction of the subway began during the construction of the Cincinnati Central Parkway over the canal bed in the early 1920s. The project was partly financed by the Ohio Department of Public Works. The canal bed was deepened to form the subway tube, but the rapid-transit system was never completed. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL02898
Subjects: Transportation--Ohio--History; Ohio. Dept. of Public Works; Miami and Erie Canal (Ohio)--History; Subway stations--1920-1930
Places: Cincinnati (Ohio); Hamilton County (Ohio)
 

Description: This photo shows the state of the Miami and Erie canal in the 1930s. The remnants of this lock indicate it is certainly no longer used at this point in time. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B02F05_015
Subjects: Montgomery County (Ohio)--History; Locks (Canal); Canals--Ohio; Miami and Erie Canal (Ohio)--History; Geography and Natural Resources; Transportation--Ohio--History.; Ohio--History--Pictorial works; Federal Writers' Project
Places: Montgomery County (Ohio)
 

Description: Photograph of construction of a subway in the old Miami canal bed, north of Findlay Street, Cincinnati, Ohio, ca. 1920-1928. Construction of the subway began during the construction of the Cincinnati Central Parkway over the canal bed in the early 1920s. The project was partly financed by the Ohio Dept. of Public Works. The canal bed was deepened to form the subway tube, but the rapid-transit system was never completed. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL02899
Subjects: Transportation--Ohio--History; Ohio. Dept. of Public Works; Miami and Erie Canal (Ohio)--History; Subway stations--1920-1930
Places: Cincinnati (Ohio); Hamilton County (Ohio)
 

Description: The original description reads: "The picture of this man wading in the canal was taken July, 1904." This photo shows the state of the Miami and Erie canal near Dayton in the early 1900s. The Miami and Erie Canal connected the Ohio River in Cincinnati and Lake Erie in Toledo and was completed in 1845. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B02F06_031
Subjects: Montgomery County (Ohio)--History; Canals--Ohio; Miami and Erie Canal (Ohio)--History; Geography and Natural Resources; Transportation--Ohio--History.; Ohio--History--Pictorial works; Federal Writers' Project
Places: Montgomery County (Ohio)