Newark: The Canals Started and Ended Here

I was reading through the some historical materials recently that struck me.

The canals started in Newark.  Ground was first broken for the Ohio and Erie Canal south of Newark, Ohio on July 4, 1825 at the Licking Summit.  The canal gave, for the first time, the ability to ship from Lake Erie to the Ohio River.  Commerce was opened in an extraordinary way.

Railroads started building and steam engines came about in the subsequent years.

Then, in 1854, a railroad connection point was made at Newark that made it possible, through Newark, to ship south via rail from Lake Erie and east to the Ohio River.  That connection, and subsequent other ones, would signal the end of the canal systems' ability to make money.

Thus, the canals, effectively, ended in Newark too.