MIAMI-ERIE CANAL LOCK 18 Huber Heights, Ohio
Along the Canal, Middletown, OH
Just down the street from one of our favorite riding destinations, The Villa in Huber Heights, is a little piece of history that many are unaware of – Lock 18 from the Miami-Erie Canal. At the time when Ohio became a state in 1803, very little 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 carriages to travel across, and the railroads were not yet in common use. In addition, Ohio was geographically separated 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 come-by and often very expensive. For the same reasons, it was difficult for Ohio businessman and farmers to sell their products outside of the state. Some entrepreneurs even began to ship goods from Ohio down the Ohio River to New Orleans, yet it was difficult to bring new goods back up the river, even with the invention of steamships. This made the cost of shipping freight extremely high and this severely limited 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. To overcome these obstacles the State of Ohio planned and built two canal systems to connect the state’s major bodies of water – Lake Erie and the Ohio River. These were the Ohio & Erie Canal and the Miami & Erie. While incredibly cost effective in terms of moving cargo, the canal systems
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The canal leaving Cincinnati and heading north towards Dayton, 1841
eventually fell victim to seasonal weather challenges and the arrival of the railroad. Locks, such as #18, were used as staircases to allow boats to navigate the different elevation levels across Ohio. It truly is an impressive structure from a by-gone era.
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