Ohio History Journal

228                                                  OHIO HISTORY

Sustained urban growth and economic viability were in most cases depend-

ent upon more than initial advantages that this sort of government patronage

could provide. Probably the most important single requirement for urban

growth and commercial development was adequate transportation. Without

reliable transport facilities connecting a town with an expanding hinterland

and with outside markets, there were oppressive limitations upon growth.

The struggle for internal improvements therefore became the cause of the

most vigorous and persistent rivalries among western urban communities--

rivalries marked by intense ambitions, deeply rooted fear of failure, and

ingenious employment of the instruments of political and economic leverage

at the disposal of urban leaders.3

The period of early urban growth in the Old Northwest coincided with the

period of canal construction by the states. How, then, did urban rivalries

influence state transport policy in the canal era, 1820-45? How did con-

tinued rivalry affect the planning and construction of western railroads when

private promotion supplanted state enterprise, from the mid-forties to 1860?

Before dealing with these questions, it must be noted that self-interested

urban activities and urban consciousness cannot be strictly separated from

the more embracing force of which they were manifestations, that is, from

"localism," a collective consciousness and sense of common interests among

the people of a given locality. The definition of common objectives and self-

interest might find expression at many levels, and often urban aims and

objectives were merely an intense reflection of regional aims.⁴ Towns fre-

quently spoke in state politics for the trade areas with which they were asso-

ciated; yet within intrastate regions (as within interstate sections) cities

might compete for hegemony. New transport facilities and redirection of

trade--or even the prospect of such change--might alter drastically the

regional identification of given urban centers.

The interplay of regional and local rivalries at the state level is illustrated

in the history of Ohio's improvements policy. The movement for construction

of a canal between Lake Erie and the Ohio River, which, it was hoped, would

open eastern markets to Ohio farmers and merchants, began to gather strength

about 1820 in response to construction of the Erie Canal in New York. In

1822 the Ohio legislature assigned to a special commission the task of plan-

ning such a canal. The canal commissioners soon recognized that their

problem was as much one of politics as of engineering. As long as the

project remained a subject of discussion in general terms, optimistic business

and political leaders throughout the state gave it their support. But once the

project took precise form and the commission recommended specific routes,

the virtue of vagueness was lost, and the towns and regions that would be

230                                                 OHIO HISTORY

bypassed united immediately in opposition to the proposal. Spokesmen for

the disappointed communities evoked the specter of oppressive taxation,

argued in principle against state intervention in the economy, and denounced

the commissioners for alleged corruption. Yet some of the same men had

earlier been among the most outspoken advocates of a state canal project.5

In 1825 the Ohio canal commission recommended, and the legislature

adopted, a canal program that represented a fusion of several important

regional interests within the state. Two canals were authorized, rather than

the single work originally contemplated. One, the Miami Canal, satisfied

Cincinnati's mercantile community and southwest Ohio; it was to run sixty-

seven miles from the Queen City north through the Miami Valley to Dayton,

with the understanding that it would later be extended northward to the

Maumee Valley and Lake Erie. The second canal, the Ohio Canal, followed

a wide-sweeping reverse-S-shaped route from the Ohio River to the lake,

passing first up the heavily settled Scioto Valley, then arching eastward to

the headwaters of the Muskingum, there turning northward again to its

terminus on the lake shore at Cleveland.6

This canal program gave new focus to urban and regional ambitions,

which adjusted quickly to take account of inter-regional connections and

new trade relationships that the canals would create. In the first place,

within regions through which the canals passed, there was an intensified

struggle for positions on the projected works. Everywhere along the canal

routes there was speculation in new town-sites. A Tuscarawas County pro-

moter expressed the thoughts of hundreds like himself when he wrote to one

of the canal commissioners: "I expect a new town will spring up [along the

canal], which, from the great trade which must center there, from the coun-

try between us and the Ohio, must be a flourishing one. But where the spot

is, I want you to tell me."7 Sensitive to the potential threat to their own

interests, established market towns in the interior petitioned for construction

of feeder canals that would connect them with the main works. In many

instances the townspeople offered to pay a portion of the cost. Several towns

organized private canal companies to build feeder lines, not in expectation

of direct profits, but rather to protect their commercial position.8

Events in the Scioto Valley, the southern route of the Ohio Canal, indi-

cated the extremes to which localism might run. Piketon and Chillicothe

had joined with other towns in the valley to support the canal bill of 1825

in the legislature. But as soon as it became necessary for the commission to

set the exact canal location, each town advanced its own cause and all sense

of regional unity dissolved. The Chillicothe interests were determined to

obtain a canal connection. They forced through the legislature a resolution

232                                                  OHIO HISTORY

State officials systematically exploited such local rivalries. Where the

canal might be located on either side of a river, the Ohio commissioners

solicited donations of land or cash from townspeople and landowners on

opposite sides of the stream, indicating that the more generous communities

would be favored when the canal was located. This practice often stimulated

unreasonable expectations and resulted in bitter disillusionment.1

Once the initial canal undertaking was approved, the "disappointed" com-

munities--those entirely outside the region of the canals--did not give up

their quest for improved transportation. On the contrary, they proposed a

multitude of new projects, many of them reflecting an effort by ambitious

towns to overcome the lead of commercial rivals that had obtained places

on the canals. "Shall narrow views and sectional feelings withhold our

assistance from a work of such evident public utility?" the promoters of

one new project asked the general assembly. "Shall we, palsied by untimely

fears, stop mid-way in the career of public improvement, to calculate the

cost, before our fellow citizens in other parts of the State participate in their

advantages?"12

Such new improvements schemes disrupted older regional alliances and

introduced new forces into state politics. Sandusky's railroad project is a

case in point. Only a few years after their town had lost to Cleveland in the

struggle for designation as the lake-shore terminus of the Ohio Canal, a

group of Sandusky promoters requested state aid for the Mad River and

Lake Erie Railroad. The Mad River Railroad was planned in 1831 to run

from Sandusky southwest to Dayton, which was then head of navigation on

the Miami Canal, and ultimately to Cincinnati. When the first canal pro-

gram had been debated in the legislature, six years earlier, the Miami Canal

proposal had been supported by the western counties located north of Dayton

--but only because of the understanding that the canal would be extended

northward as soon as finances permitted. Having enjoyed the benefits of its

position as head of navigation on the Miami Canal, Dayton now shifted its

allegiance, and the town's representatives decided to support state aid for

the Mad River Railroad instead of for extension of the canal."¹³ This move

threatened to strand the area to the north, and the towns in that region (espe-

cially Piqua) resented what they regarded as Dayton's treachery. "The Canal

must be extended," Piqua's newspaper editor declared, despite "the selfish

policy of those, who at a former period made such professions of friendship

to us; but who, since their views have been accomplished, forget their

obligations."14

The projects that blossomed forth in every part of the state also came into

conflict with one another in the effort to secure the patronage of the legis-

URBAN RIVALRY                                                      233

lature, which at this time commanded only limited funds. If logrolling was

an important feature of the legislative process, so too was the log jam. The

Ohio General Assembly was virtually stalemated for several years in the

early 1830's because of conflicting demands for internal improvements.15

The jam began to break when extension of the Miami Canal and construction

of the Wabash and Erie Canal were authorized--but only because the federal

government had provided land-grant aid for these projects. Finally, the

pressure of local ambitions became too great to resist further. In 1836-37

the legislature approved a comprehensive system of new canals and state

aid to railroad and turnpike companies, a program that within five years

would bring Ohio to the verge of default on its enlarged debt. Every region

had to be satisfied, it seemed; every little community able to advance half

the cost was to receive state assistance in the construction of turnpikes or

railways.¹⁶

With adoption of the enlarged improvements program, urban and regional

ambitions adjusted rapidly to the new transportation developments. Many of

the patterns of localism and rivalries witnessed a decade earlier now reap-

peared. In the Muskingum Valley, where a project to improve the river for

steamboat traffic was undertaken, Zanesville and Dresden fought over which

town should be the head of navigation, just as Dayton and Piqua had strug-

gled for headship on the Miami Canal. Meanwhile, Marietta, situated at

the mouth of the Muskingum, protested that the size of the locks was too

limited. The vision of every town in the valley appeared to be one of infinite

optimism and boundless growth. "We look forward," a petition of Marietta

merchants declared glowingly,

and [we] see our situation placed on the thoroughfare, between the Atlantic & the

Medeterranean [sic] of the North, the Mississippi & the St. Lawrence. We look

forward to the arrival of the Ohio & Chesapeake Canal and the Baltimore &

Ohio Rail Road. . . . We look & expect to see the Ohio made slackwater by Locks

& dams, from Marietta to Pittsburgh . . . & Lastly we expect to see the Locks,

on the Muskingum Improvement, increased. . . . We wish to convince you, that

the discriminating principle, attending the small locks, is derogatory to social

Commerce, & has been discarded by all civilized nations. 17

In the Maumee Valley, then sparsely settled, the people of several small

towns--Toledo, Maumee, Perrysburg, and Manhattan--and the absentee

proprietors of the towns (including several of the most prominent Ohio

political leaders), all had favored construction of the Wabash and Erie

Canal, a project designed to continue Indiana's Wabash and Erie Canal

from the state line through the Maumee Valley to the lake. But once the Ohio

234                                                  OHIO HISTORY

legislature had decided to undertake the project, these villages competed

bitterly with one another for designation as the terminus.18 Among the instru-

ments of rivalry employed were court injunctions, petitions to the legisla-

ture and to congress, and pressure on the United States General Land Office

to limit the extent of the federal land grant by designating one of the com-

peting towns as head of lake navigation. State officials finally decided to

satisfy all the major competing points by extending the canal to the mouth of

the river, with terminal locks and basins at Manhattan, Toledo, and Maumee.

To equalize the conditions of rivalry the state agreed also to open all the

terminal locks simultaneously.¹⁹ Thus even after a major improvement had

been authorized, the competition of rival communities could serve to increase

the costs of construction.

Roughly the same patterns of localism characterized the evolution of

public transport policy in the other states of the Old Northwest. During the

early promotional phase of internal improvements, when state officials or

private pressure groups were agitating for projects in general terms, there

tended to be divisions between the great trade regions of each state. In

Indiana, for example, the southern river counties viewed with suspicion the

proposal for the Wabash and Erie Canal, and they coalesced to press for

roads and railways from the interior to the Ohio River.²⁰ In Illinois, too,

the region tributary to the Mississippi River and southern markets adamantly

opposed state aid exclusively for the proposed canal to Chicago. The towns

on the eastern lake shore in Wisconsin (still a territory) all sought canal

or railroad connections with the interior; but they were prevented from

realizing their objectives because of opposition in the northern region, which

demanded priority for the Fox and Wisconsin river improvement project,

and in the western river towns.²¹

Once specific projects had been formulated, broad regional divisions

gave way under pressure for more localized objectives. "Most of the members

[of the legislature] vote for nothing which does not pass through their own

county," the Indiana state engineer complained in 1835. Indiana's Michigan

Road, supported in a general way by all the Ohio River counties, became an

object of sharp urban rivalry when designation of the southern terminus

had to be made. Similarly, the program that the state's engineers submitted

to the legislature in 1835 was not rendered acceptable until it had been

expanded elaborately, "to buy votes," a year later.²² In Michigan all the

lake shore towns demanded connections with the interior, yet no policy

could command adequate support until one embracing the objectives of

every competing town had been formulated. And so Indiana, Illinois, and

Michigan all adopted comprehensive state programs that overextended their

URBAN RIVALRY                                                    235

resources. In both Illinois and Indiana the political strength of localism

was further manifested in provisions of the law requiring simultaneous starts

on all projects; in addition, each of the states' settled regions was granted

representation on the boards of public works.²3 Once construction had begun,

moreover, scores of proposals were put forward in each state for branch

lines, feeder canals, and turnpike and railroad connections designed to

satisfy the needs of towns outside the immediate areas of the main im-

provements.4

Still another feature of urban and regional rivalry as it affected state

policy concerned canal tolls. Toll schedules were commonly established

by state authorities on a protectionist basis. The states maintained two toll

lists--one for "domestic," or in-state, manufactures and a higher schedule of

tolls for "foreign," or out-of-state, commodities. In Ohio, for example,

manufacturers of glassware, iron, salt, crockery, and other products were

the beneficiaries of protectionist tolls.²⁵ As long as canals remained the sole

means of cheap transport to the interior, manufacturers located inland from

Lake Erie or the Ohio River enjoyed a form of tariff protection from out-

of-state competition. Merchants at the terminal cities on the lake and the

Ohio River condemned the protectionist policy as one which imposed arti-

ficial restrictions upon the canal commerce that was their economic lifeblood.

The conflict between terminal cities and inland towns was expressed in the

1840's in a debate over wheat and flour tolls. The millers of the interior

demanded tolls on unprocessed grain that were proportionally higher than

tolls on flour. This, they argued, would encourage Ohio's milling industry

and reduce the flow of Ohio grain to New York State mills. Merchants and

millers at terminal cities opposed such action; they favored equivalent tolls

on grain and flour (or even discrimination against flour) as a means of

fostering the milling industry of their cities or the export of increasing quan-

tities of grain.²⁶

Similarly, merchants at Cleveland, then gateway for import of salt from

the East, fought discrimination in salt tolls that protected Ohio producers in

the central portion of the state. Thus within the state there was a conflict

between mercantile and manufacturing interests, comparable to the division

in national politics over tariff policy. The issue of canal tolls cut across

party lines, and special regional alignments were fostered by this important

question. State officials were forced to mediate such conflicts, with no reso-

lution possible that could fully satisfy all contending interests.²⁷

In the period of canal construction, urban and regional ambitions were

directed largely toward manipulation and control of state policy. The panic

of 1837 and the post-¹⁸³⁹ depression marked the end of the era of state

236                                                  OHIO HISTORY

canals in the Old Northwest. As the depression came to an end in the mid-

forties a new internal-improvements movement gathered momentum, with a

new set of conditions shaping the character of the movement. In the first

place, there had been a revulsion against further large-scale construction

by state government, the result of scandals in management of the public

works, intolerable indebtedness, and default on their debt by several states

in the depression period.28 In the second place, the advantages of the railroad

over the canal had been demonstrated. Construction of railways to meet

local needs was a task that many communities believed they could undertake

independently of state aid, particularly if municipal, township, or county

governments extended assistance to private companies.²⁹ This enthusiasm for

railroads was heightened by another force: the infusion of eastern capital

into western railroad construction and reorganization after 1845-46. Foreign

investors, too (particularly the English), showed renewed interest after 1852

in purchasing railroad bonds or local-government securities issued for rail-

road aid.30 Moreover, in the canal states the railroad promised to liberate

urban centers and regions that had formerly been at the mercy of geographic

conditions. Limitations of terrain that had characterized canal planning

were no longer relevant, a change that urban leadership was quick to com-

prehend. The new railroad technology reopened the critical question of which

city would dominate trade in each region of the Old Northwest. As Chicago,

Milwaukee, and St. Louis battled for control of the Mississippi Valley trade

in the most spectacular western urban rivalry, so too in every area of the

West towns competed for positions on the new railroads and for hegemony

in local trade areas.31

Most of the projected western railroads were designed at first to serve

primarily local needs and objectives. This fact explains the enthusiasm with

which communities, small and large, supported private railroad companies

with public aid.32 Among the arguments of railroad promoters seeking local

subscriptions and public assistance were many that had become familiar in

the canal era. Multiple market outlets were a major objective of many com-

munities, and numerous railroad schemes were designed to free towns from

"monopoly" conditions, under which they were tributary to a single market;

in the same way, the state canal programs had been designed to open alter-

nate markets to western producers formerly dependent upon the New Orleans

outlet. Established metropolitan centers, such as Cleveland and Cincinnati,

extended municipal aid to railroads in an effort to multiply and extend their

transport radii or to obtain all-rail connections with the East. Some railroad

promoters even advertised their projects as potential links in transcontinental

systems that would carry the trade of Asia and the Far West through a par-

URBAN RIVALRY                                                   237

ticular town or village. And by the early fifties there had emerged the well-

known competition among major cities for designation as the eastern termi-

nus of a land-grant transcontinental railway.³³ Less pretentious communities

sought places on the new railroad lines merely to survive, or else to over-

come advantages enjoyed by rival towns on canals or rivers.34

Indicative of the emphasis upon local objectives in railroad promotion

was the ambivalent western attitude toward eastern influence. The western

railroad promoter was usually quite willing to accept financial assistance

from established railroad companies, and he eagerly solicited eastern invest-

ment in bonds or stock. But he generally had to rely in the first instance

upon local resources, public and private; and the prospect that outsiders

might control the enterprise could hinder seriously his efforts to raise funds

locally. One Ohio railroad organizer, for example, argued with his fellow

promoters in 1851 that it was inadvisable to employ an engineer from the

East to locate the line. Local people would, he said, suspect "that this

Eastern man would come here with Eastern habits, feelings, associations and

interests, the effect of which must be, to give everything an Eastern aspect."35

In the same vein, the president of the New Albany and Salem Railroad in

Indiana wrote in 1852 that because most of the stockholders lived along the

route, the company was protected from "the prejudice that exists in the

public mind in many places against [railroads], where they are looked

upon as monopolies owned and managed by persons having no interests or

sympathies in common with them."36 Yet two of the strongest arguments

employed by western railroad promoters to secure local support were that

their roads might one day merge with others to form a large integrated

system or that they might bring an eastern main line to the sponsoring

communities.³⁷

Western railroad entrepreneurs skillfully induced and exploited local

rivalries, as state canal authorities had once done, by soliciting subscriptions

or donations from communities on alternative routes. One may trace the

routes of many early western railroads by naming the towns and counties

(seldom on a straight line!) that extended public aid. Similarly, the major

eastern trunk lines--notably the Pennsylvania and the Baltimore and Ohio--

gave financial support to several parallel-running western railroads, thereby

stimulating competition among rival communities on all the routes thus

aided.³⁸

Private financing and public aid at the local level were critical determi-

nants of the pace and character of western railroad expansion. Urban rivalry

continued to find expression, however, in the arena of the state legislatures.

Debate over charters often involved bitter conflict over routes; and in some

URBAN RIVALRY                                                    239

many communities were amply rewarded by commercial advantages con-

ferred by the new transport lines.41 But precisely because the objectives

of western railway promotion had been defined within a context of local am-

bitions, the reaction was severe when these ambitions were frustrated.

Throughout the Old Northwest the people resisted payment on bonds and

subscriptions that aided railroads never built or which once built had fallen

victim to bankrupt reorganization. Sometimes there was violence, as in

Athens, Ohio, where townspeople tore up the tracks of the Marietta and

Cincinnati Railroad, which had bypassed the town even though its citizens

had voted for county aid to the company.⁴² In the 1850's there appeared

anti-railroad sentiment that presaged the Granger movement, a sentiment

stimulated by resentment against emergent eastern dominance over railroads

built initially with local aid; the outsiders often imposed rates unfavorable

to the western communities that had helped build the roads.⁴³

Whether or not the objectives of westerners who supported early railroads

were later frustrated, the debates over transportation heightened urban

community consciousness and sharpened local pride in many western towns.

The issues concerning internal improvements that dominated town politics

over many years constantly forced farmers and urban residents alike to re-

examine their local interests, needs, and hopes in a period of rapid change

in the West.

What occurred in the Old Northwest in the period 1820-60 also charac-

terized development of the national transportation system in the pre-Civil

War years: localism and regionalism were so strong that they rendered

impossible any comprehensive, rational planning of a system of internal

improvements.44 A glance at the transport map of the West in 1860 reveals

the gross absurdities of parallel lines and over-dense construction in many

areas. The highly rational response of western leaders to their communities'

transport needs had led to a highly irrational result. But the western

transport network included many lines of communication, built mainly

with the resources of state and local government, that were vital in the

development of a national economy. And the growth of this transport net-

work had been influenced significantly by the effects of urban and regional

rivalry.

THE AUTHOR: Harry N. Scheiber is an

assistant professor of history at Dartmouth Col-

lege. He is now completing a book-length study

of internal improvements and economic change

in Ohio during the period covered in this

article.