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Miami and Erie Canal
The Miami and Erie Canal was a canal in Ohio that ran about ; it was constructed from Cincinnati, Ohio to Toledo to create a water route from the Ohio River to 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 above Lake Erie and above the Ohio River to reach a topographical peak called the Loramie Summit, which extended between New Bremen, Ohio to lock 1-S in Lockington, north of Piqua, Ohio. Boats up to eighty feet long were towed along the canal by donkeys, horses, or oxen walking on a prepared towpath along the bank, at a rate of four to five miles per hour. Due to competition from railroads, which began to be built in the area in the 1850s, the commercial use of the canal gradually declined during the late 19th century. It was permanently abandoned for commercial use in 1913 after a historic flood in Ohio severely damaged it.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 Miami and Erie Canal )〕 Only a small fraction of the canal survives today, along with its towpath and locks.
==Background==
When Ohio became a state in 1803, very few means of transportation existed within the region to move people and cargo from place to place. Most of the existing roads were of poor quality for carriage travel, and the railroads were not yet in common use. In addition, Ohio was geographically separated from the East Coast by the barrier of the Appalachian Mountains. This made life difficult for early citizens because goods from the Atlantic Coast and Europe were difficult to obtain and often very expensive due to transportation costs. For the same reasons, it was difficult for Ohio businessman and farmers to sell their products outside of the state. Some entrepreneurs began to ship goods from Ohio down the Ohio River to New Orleans, by sailing ship and keelboats, but the journey was long and costly. It was difficult to return vessels upriver. Even after invention of the steamships improved river transportation, it was more difficult to ship goods upriver. The cost of shipping freight was extremely high, severely limiting trade and population growth in the state; especially in areas that were far away from natural waterways such as Lake Erie or the Ohio River, which bounded the state on the north and south, respectively.〔Prof. J.E. Hagerty, C.P. McClelland and C.C. Huntington ''History of the Ohio Canals: Their Construction, Cost, Use and Partial Abandonment'' (Columbus, Ohio: the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1905)〕
To overcome these obstacles, many people, including George Washington and several other politicians, expressed early support for a national canal system to connect many of the country's waterways. In 1807, Senator Thomas Worthington of Ohio (who later became governor) asked the Secretary of the Treasury for funds to improve roads and build canals in Ohio, yet did not have much success.〔 At the time, many prominent leaders in the Democratic Republican party were against improvements being built by the national government and thought that they should be built by the individual states instead. The United States Congress approved national canal legislation in 1817, 1822, and 1830, but each bill was vetoed by the sitting president.
Consequently, the burden of building canals passed to the states, with the Erie Canal in New York proving to be an early success after it was completed in 1825.〔Randolph C. Downes, ''Canal Days:'' Lucas County Historical Series Volume II. (Maumee Valley Historical Society. Toledo, Ohio. 1968)〕 The Ohio House and Senate had worked for two decades to pass legislation authorizing a canal, gaining success with the Act of February 4, 1825 which finally approved the construction of the Ohio canal system. The canal was largely state-funded, using money acquired from selling off land near where the canals were to be dug. The state government planned and built two canals in the state: the Miami and Erie Canal, from Cincinnati to Toledo, connecting the Ohio River and Lake Erie; and the Ohio and Erie Canal, which connected Cleveland to Portsmouth. This system provided the interior of Ohio with new travel routes that effectively extended to New York City, as merchants could ship goods through Lake Erie, the Erie Canal and the Hudson River to New York.
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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