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Butler County prominent in history of Ohio canals

Book recalls colorful characters, boom towns that came with ‘towpaths.’

The canals were not only important for the region's commercial development, but factored into the everyday lives of people who lived near them. Here, a group of people take a dip in a spillway into Crawfords Run Creek. Contributed photo

Contributed Photo The canals were not only important for the region's commercial development, but factored into the everyday lives of people who lived near them. Here, a group of people take a dip in a spillway into Crawfords Run Creek. Contributed photo

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10:31 PM Thursday, December 29, 2011

By Richard O Jones

Staff Writer

Although only scant traces remain, the Miami & Erie Canal played an important role in the development of Butler County for nearly 100 years.

The history of Ohio canals has been documented in a new book, “Towpaths: A Collection of Articles from the Quarterly Publication of the Canal Society of Ohio.”

The collection was put together by Liberty Twp. resident and canal historian Bill Oeters and “Towpaths” editor Boone Triplett of Wadsworth, Ohio, in honor of the society’s 50th anniversary.

While “Towpaths” covers all of Ohio’s canal systems, many articles and excerpts explore parts of the canals in Butler County and tell the stories of some of the colorful characters who worked on them, including one Captain Bill, “the toughest captain on the old Miami Canal,” whose entire crew quit on him when he landed at the Middletown wharf.

When the society and “Towpaths” first got started, many contributors still had first-hand knowledge of the canal days, and enough anecdotal stories keep it from being “dry history,” Oeters said.

Oeters said that the canals were largely responsible for a boost in population in the 19th century.

“The river is not a good way of transportation,” he said, “and roads were in terrible condition, but the canals were a cheap way to get goods to Cincinnati.”

The locks became centers of activity and small towns, like the defunct Rialto, sprang up around the locks, as did ancillary businesses like paper mills, breweries, distilleries and ice ponds.

A Towpath Trail at Port Union is one of the few places where people can still see some remnants of the canal system, including a large ice pond.

“Property values went up exponentially for any property that abutted the canal, which improved the tax base,” Oeters said.

The advent of the railroad system eventually made the canals obsolete.

“The state still operated the canals long past their usefulness just to give the railroads some competition,” Oeters said. “But much of it got wiped out in the 1913 flood and was never replaced.”

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.

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