After completing their hook up with the Wabash River southwest of Fort Wayne, the Indiana Canal Commissioners immediately started on their project to the east. It had been agreed that Indiana would extend their canal to the Ohio State line. This they did by 1840. However, Ohio had other priorities. Ohio was expending their efforts in creating the huge reservoir at St. Marys and at the same time building the locks around the rapids of the Maumee River to the north. The twenty mile section through the uninhabited swamps of Paulding County had little interest to Ohio. Bitter words were passed between the legislatures of the states. Indiana felt that Ohio was reneging on their agreement and Ohio resented the interference of Indiana in their planning. Two years of bickering and name calling between politicians finally came to an end three years later. In 1843 Ohio finally linked the Indiana canal at the state line with the main line of the Miami and Erie at the little town of Junction.

As this was accomplished, the river traffic down the Saint Marys River fell off to almost nothing. The river-port of Saint Marys had been a very busy place for twenty years. But as the M. & E. Canal was fully opened from Cincinnati to Toledo and Fort Wayne in 1845, the now incorporated village of Saint Marys took on new importance.

Old Charlie Murray had at one time been awed by the thought of a lake to be built "almost a mile wide and maybe a mile and a half long." Charlie's lake was built far greater than his dreams could comprehend. To catch the waters from the Chickasaw and Coldwater creeks, the western bank was located almost ten miles from the eastern levee and thereby dammed up an area of about twenty

square miles. Lake Saint Marys, originally called The Grand Reservoir, created amid bitter controversy, poor financial management and some irregular land surveys, became the largest body of water created by man. It was not to be surpassed in size for many generations.

In addition to the gigantic reservoir, known today as Grand Lake Saint Marys, the canal in this area included every type of construction known to the builders. The bulkhead and lock on the East Bank Road, even today, stand nearly as they did in 1845. A beautiful multi-arched culvert carries the Feeder over the top of the Middle Branch of the River near State Route 66 while only a short distance downstream was the old aquaduct along Beech Street road. This structure, although flumed today, was a box like affair through which would pass the largest packets. In the city proper were Lock 12, now filled for parking and Lock 13 over which the Saint Marys Woolen Company built a part of their mill. North of High Street is the "Tumble," designed to prevent flooding by dumping excess waters into the next lower level. Between the city and 40 Acre Pond is another flood control that spills over into the river. Lock 14, just north of the pond is easily accessable by road. This lock has been rebuilt with concrete walls. Locks 9, 10 and 11 were apparently wooden locks and have practically disappeared. However, the beautiful Lock 8, built of cut and skillfully fitted blocks of native limestone still stands as a monument to those pioneers of a hundred and thirty years ago. It needs some attention and is deserving of recognition and preservation.

The hundreds and hundreds of men who had been engaged in digging and building stayed on to buy and clear the land they had purchased by their toil. They stayed to enter commerce and the industries that depended on the forest and the field. They stayed to work the canal as boatsmen and lock tenders and repair crews. They stayed because they had come to love this land and saw the great opportunities for a new life. The canal was not finished-it had just begun.