ironically, the guy who helps bring the railroad to cleveland is the same guy who champions the canal, alfred kelley. the railroads had an immediate impact on the canal. however, the canal did stay in use until 1913. it just had a different use. it started to become a place where people would go leisurely on a weekend. they would have a boat, they would travel up and down the canals. many times, the canals when they were put in place, or they would have general stores or taverns, and people would, i guess in their day, go pub crawling, if you will. using a canal boat on a sunday afternoon. one permanent legacy of the canal was the fact in cleveland, especially, the river valley became the center of storage. it bekacame a port. it became a manufacturing center of the city itself. so that's where the wealth of cleveland grew. it was all based on the fact you had that canal as cleveland's first port there. as time went on and manufacturing obviously rose, i mean, city of cleveland grew. we became the fifth largest city in the country, we had major, major steel mills and oil refineries thanks to john ro