|
 |
Dayton’s Fifth River: The Miami-Erie Canal   he history of the Miami-Erie Canal dates back to the early 1820’s. Farmers and merchants who relied heavily on horse-drawn wagons needed a faster way to get their goods to different parts of Dayton, as well as to locations beyond the city. In 1825, the state congress passed a law authorizing a canal to be built from the Ohio River to Lake Erie, a part of which would pass through Dayton. Building a canal in the early nineteenth century proved to be a large undertaking and required huge amounts of money and manpower. The project’s estimated cost started at $567,000, but thousands more were spent before the canal was completed to Toledo in 1845. Canal workers included African Americans living in Dayton’s “Africa” settlement on the city’s east side, and recently arrived Irish and German immigrants. However, local farmers living near the canal route made up the largest part of the workforce. All were paid a grand sum of 30 cents per day plus whiskey and some food. Serious illness and even death, especially from malaria, was not uncommon among the workers. This unfortunate fact probably contributed to the local legend that said there was “one dead Irishman for every mile of the canal.” Measuring as much as 40 feet wide at water level, the canal’s depth rarely reached beyond a man’s shoulders, or about four feet. Flat-bottomed boats, loaded down with everything from bales of hay to barrels of nails, were pulled by horses or mules along towpaths that lined the waterway. A primary feature of the canal was its locks. Each lock consisted of two gates separating two different levels of water. Boats passed through the first gate which then closed. A second gate then slowly opened allowing canal water to pour in and equalize the water level. The boat could then continue on its way. The time, money, and manpower involved in the Miami-Erie Canal’s construction paid off in 1829 when the Cincinnati-Dayton portion of the canal was completed. Almost immediately, the canal transformed Dayton from an isolated settlement on the edge of the wilderness into a thriving regional center of transportation. Countless businesses began shipping their goods on the canal, and merchants could now offer their customers goods from as far away as New York and New Orleans at much less cost. Travelers looking for the quickest and most comfortable route to Cincinnati chose to take canal boats like the Governor Brown, which made the 66-mile trip in less than 24 hours. Between 1841 and 1851 the canal enjoyed its greatest use and its highest earnings, almost $750,000. The decline of the canal can be attributed to the coming of the railroads. They were faster, could travel greater distances, in all kinds of weather, and were more luxurious than canal boats. In 1877, the State of Ohio decided to officially abandon the canal, only 32 years after its formation. Despite several efforts to revitalize the waterway, Dayton finally decided to fill in its canal bed in 1927. The boulevard that replaced it was named for NCR founder and former canal toll collector, John H. Patterson. BACK TO TOP |
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 View
of Main Street canal bridge in Dayton, March 22, 1911[Canal01-10] |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
