pleted several miles of a railroad, "The Mad River and Lake Erie," towards Dayton, which point it reached in 1844. Ohio capital and enthusiasm for railway construction were abundant, as shown by the fact that in 1837 forty-three railroad companies were organized by state charters.[1] Many of these roads were never built, but some of them have become the best lines in the state. By 1846 a road was completed from Cincinnati to Springfield, and by 1848 through steam connection was made between Cincinnati and Sandusky.[2] Columbus and Cleveland were connected in 1851, and during the same year a railroad was finished between Cleveland and Cincinnati.[3] The next year a line was opened from Cleveland to Pittsburg.
Geographically Ohio needed transverse railroads; the lake and the river were its natural thoroughfares to markets; the wide, fertile major valleys of the state trend north-south, and its products move almost by gravity to one outlet or the other. Ohioans, except the immigrant ancestors, never gave further thought to the "Appalachian Barrier"; heir commercial friends on the seabooard looked after building the east-west lines.
The rivalry of the Atlantic ports in establishing through railroad transportation to the Mississippi basin was thus an advantage to Ohio. The Hudson-Mohawk valley made the construction of a line a child's task for New York, but the Appalachians imposed on Baltimore and Philadelphia a herculanean undertaking; the former city early recognized the limitations of canals. A citizen of Baltimore in urging the undertaking said:
Baltimore lies two hundred miles nearer to the navigable waters of the West than New York, and about one hundred miles nearer to them than Philadelphia; to which may be added the important fact, that the easiest and by far the most practicable route through the ridge of mountains, which divides K the Atlantic from the western waters, is along the depression formed by the Potomac in its passage through them.[4]
In 1828 construction was commenced at Baltimore on a line headed for the Ohio valley, but twenty-five years elapsed before this destination was reached by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the difficulties of construction having been underestimated.
The next year, 1854, the Pennsylvania line reached Pittsburg, with which city Cleveland had been joined the preceding year. In 1852 a road was opened from Buffalo to Cleveland; the same year, one from Toledo to Chicago; and the next year through traffic was made possible
