Geography of Ohio 129 



iiig of the canal from Dresden to Cleveland, the price of wheat 

 advanced from 25 cents to $1.00 per bushel. - 



Railroad huilding. These canals had bareh^ been completed 

 before Americans started earnestly to building railroads. The 

 construction of canals was always expensive, and the country 

 accommodated by them necessarily limited; relatively, the freight 

 rates were cheap, but on account of slowness of transportation 

 many crops could not be shipped. Some of the canals naturally 

 were neglected; and the state's energy was given to building rail- 

 roads. 



When we speak of railroads to-day, we at once think of one 

 or another of the great "through lines." In the early daj^s of 

 railroad construction, no one dreamed of even a trans-state 

 road. Until recent years a through line always meant the con- 

 solidation of short independently owned segments. Local inter- 

 est in railroad building in Ohio was livel}' from the start. Thrifty 

 commercial relations emphasized the inadequacy of boating facil- 

 ities. The efficiency of the Lake Erie and Erie Canal route was 

 not questioned, but there were few canals in Ohio to give access 

 to the lake. The first steam road to operate in the state (1836) 

 had one terminus on the lake at Toledo, the other being at Adrian, 

 Mich. Sandusky had no canal, but by 1839 it completed sev- 

 eral miles of a railroad, ''The Mad River and Lake Erie/' towards 

 Dayton, which point it reached in 1844. Ohio capital and enthu- 

 siasm for railway construction were abundant, as shown b}- the 

 fact that in 1837 forty-three railroad companies were organized 

 by state charters. Many of these roads were never built, but 

 some of them have become the best lines in the state. By 1846 

 a road was completed from Cincinnati to Springfield, and, b}' 

 1848, through steam connection w^as made between Cincinnati 

 and Sandusky. Columbus and Cleveland were connected in 

 1851, and during the same year a railroad was finished between 

 Cleveland and Cincinnati. The next year a line was opened 

 from Cleveland to Pittsburg. 



Geographically, Ohio needed transverse railroads; the lake 

 and the river were its natural thoroughfares to markets; the 

 wide, fertile major valleys of the state trend north-south, and its 

 products move almost by gravity to one outlet or the other. 



* Henry Howe, Historical Collection of Ohio, vol. ii (1891), p. 325. 



