The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east–west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing the costs of transporting people and goods across the Appalachians. In effect, the canal accelerated the settlement of the Great Lakes region, the westward expansion of the United States, and the economic ascendancy of New York State. It has been called "The Nation's First Superhighway."
Shelby County is a county in the western portion of the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 48,230. Its county seat is Sidney. Its name honors Isaac Shelby, first governor of Kentucky.
St. Marys is a city in Auglaize County, Ohio, United States. Located in western Ohio, it is 11 miles (18 km) west of Wapakoneta and 20 miles (32 km) east of the Ohio/Indiana border. The city is located on a portage between the St. Marys and Auglaize river systems, which was a significant factor in its development before the era of canals. The population was 8,397 at the 2020 census. It is included in the Wapakoneta, Ohio, Micropolitan Statistical Area. It was founded in 1823 and takes its name from the nearby St. Marys River.
Fort Loramie is a village in Shelby County, Ohio, United States, along Loramie Creek, a tributary of the Great Miami River in southwestern Ohio. It is 42 mi. north-northwest of Dayton and 20 mi. east of the Ohio/Indiana border. The population was 1,478 at the 2010 census. The village was founded in 1837 near the former site of a colonial fort of the same name.
Lockington is a village in Washington Township, Shelby County, Ohio, United States, along Loramie Creek. The population was 141 at the 2010 census.
A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats, ships and other watercraft between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. The distinguishing feature of a lock is a fixed chamber in which the water level can be varied; whereas in a caisson lock, a boat lift, or on a canal inclined plane, it is the chamber itself that rises and falls.
The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal and occasionally called the Grand Old Ditch, operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River between Washington, D.C., and Cumberland, Maryland. It replaced the Potomac Canal, which shut down completely in 1828, and could operate during months in which the water level was too low for the former canal. The canal's principal cargo was coal from the Allegheny Mountains.
The Wabash and Erie Canal was a shipping canal that linked the Great Lakes to the Ohio River via an artificial waterway. The canal provided traders with access from the Great Lakes all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Over 460 miles long, it was the longest canal ever built in North America.
The Miami and Erie Canal was a 274-mile (441 km) canal that ran from Cincinnati to Toledo, Ohio, creating a water route between the Ohio River and Lake Erie. Construction on the canal began in 1825 and was completed in 1845 at a cost to the state government of $8,062,680.07. At its peak, it included 19 aqueducts, three guard locks, 103 canal locks, multiple feeder canals, and a few man-made water reservoirs. The canal climbed 395 feet (120 m) above Lake Erie and 513 feet (156 m) above the Ohio River to reach a topographical peak called the Loramie Summit, which extended 19 miles (31 km) between New Bremen, Ohio to lock 1-S in Lockington, north of Piqua, Ohio. Boats up to 80 feet long were towed along the canal by mules, horses, or oxen walking on a prepared towpath along the bank, at a rate of four to five miles per hour.
The Ohio and Erie Canal was a canal constructed during the 1820s and early 1830s in Ohio. It connected Akron with the Cuyahoga River near its outlet on Lake Erie in Cleveland, and a few years later, with the Ohio River near Portsmouth. It also had connections to other canal systems in Pennsylvania.
The Warren County Canal was a branch of the Miami and Erie Canal in southwestern Ohio about 20 miles (32 km) in length that connected the Warren County seat of Lebanon to the main canal at Middletown in the mid-19th century. Lebanon was at the crossroads of two major roads, the highway from Cincinnati to Columbus and the road from Chillicothe to the College Township (Oxford), but Lebanon businessmen and civic leaders wanted better transportation facilities and successfully lobbied for their own canal, part of the canal fever of the first third of the 19th century. The Warren County Canal was never successful, operating less than a decade before the state abandoned it.
The Oswego Canal is a canal in the New York State Canal System located in New York, United States. Opened in 1828, it is 23.7 miles (38.1 km) in length, and connects the Erie Canal at Three Rivers to Lake Ontario at Oswego. The canal has a depth of 14 ft (4.3 m), with seven locks spanning the 118 ft (36 m) change in elevation.
This is a list of properties and districts in Ohio that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. There are over 4.000 in total. Of these, 73 are National Historic Landmarks. There are listings in each of Ohio's 88 counties.
Loramie Creek is a 40.0-mile-long (64.4 km) tributary of the Great Miami River in western Ohio in the United States. Via the Great Miami and Ohio rivers, it is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River, draining an area of 265 square miles (690 km2). According to the Geographic Names Information System, the stream has also been known historically as "Laramie Creek," "Loramie Ditch," "Loramies Creek," and "Lonamie Creek." It is named after Louis Lorimier, a French-Canadian fur trader who had a trading post in the area in the 18th century.
The Locks on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, located in Maryland, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C. of the United States, were of three types: lift locks; river locks; and guard, or inlet, locks.
The Whitewater Canal, which was built between 1836 and 1847, spanned a distance of 76 miles (122 km) and stretched from Lawrenceburg, Indiana on the Ohio River to Hagerstown, Indiana near the West Fork of the White River.
Following is a list of historic canals that were once used for transportation in Ohio.
The Beaver and Erie Canal, also known as the Erie Extension Canal, was part of the Pennsylvania Canal system and consisted of three sections: the Beaver Division, the Shenango Division, and the Conneaut Division. The canal ran 136 miles (219 km) north–south near the western edge of the state from the Ohio River to Lake Erie through Beaver County, Lawrence County, Mercer County, Crawford County, and Erie County, Pennsylvania.
The Lockington Covered Bridge was a historic covered bridge that once spanned the Great Miami River near Lockington, Ohio, United States. Built in 1848, it employed the Long Truss method of construction. Construction elements included vertical wooden siding, wooden structural elements, wooden shingles on its roof, and cut stone abutments. Measuring approximately 170 feet (52 m) long, the bridge was composed of two spans; it cost $1,500 to build.
The Waterford Flight is a set of locks on the Erie Canal in upstate New York. Erie Canal Locks E-2 through E-6 make up the combined flight at Waterford, which lifts vessels from the Hudson River to the Mohawk River, bypassing Cohoes Falls. Built in 1915, the Waterford Flight is still in use today as part of the New York State Canal System, which is open to public and commercial traffic. The Waterford Flight is the series of locks with the highest elevation gain relative to its length for any canal lock system in the United States.
