Canal view from Cherry Street south with store backs facing canal.

From the booklet "Canal Fulton's History"

. . . The Ohio and Erie Canal was completed in 1832, seven years after the ground breaking, at a cost of 4.7 million dollars. The route lay partially along the path of the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas River valleys, formerly the site of the most important north-south Indian trail in eastern Ohio. The canal ran from Cleveland on Lake Erie to Portsmouth on the Ohio River. It was the first important commercial avenue in the state. After it was completed, produce could be shipped by water directly to New Orleans via the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. It could also be sent to New York City via Lake Erie and Erie Canal and Hudson River in New York. The 309 mile long canal contained 152 locks. The canal bed was excavated to a depth of four feet, twenty-six feet wide at the bottom and forty feet wide at the surface . . . The canal era began to come to an end in 1869 with the arrival of the railroad. . . In March, 1913, the worst flood in the history of Ohio destroyed much of the Canal.