Most of the reservoirs in the flooded districts belonged to the Ohio state canal system and were constructed to supply water for the canals in the dry seasons. In addition, the Columbus water supply storage dam on the Scioto river, was reported to have failed, causing a panic in Columbus. A number of power dams in various parts of the state were also the subjects of similar rumors. But these reports were either entirely without foundation, as in the case of the Columbus dam, or else the dams were relatively unimportant, so that this article may well be confined to the canal reservoirs.
The Ohio canal system, built in the second quarter of the last century, consists of two main divisions—the Ohio Canal, or eastern route, connecting Lake Erie and the Ohio river by way of the Cuyahoga, Tuscarawas, Muskingum, Licking and Scioto river valleys; and the Miami and Erie Canal, or western route, connecting Lake Erie and the Ohio river by way of the Maumee, Auglaize, and Miami river valleys. In addition, the Muskingum river was slack-watered below Zanesville. Numerous lateral, feeder and tributary canals completed a system which had cost approximately $16,000,000 and which comprised in 1850 over 1,000 miles of canals, more than 300 lift locks and half a dozen reservoirs.
In the case of each of the main canal routes, water was lacking on the summit level during the dry season, and the reservoirs were constructed to supplement the normal flow at such times. The Portage Lakes, just south of Akron, were dammed about 1840, to supply the summit of the eastern route; Loramie and Lewistown Reservoirs about 1850–60, for the western route; and the Licking Reservoir, or Buckeye Lake, about 1832, for the Licking summit. In addition, Grand Reservoir, the largest in the state, was built about 1841, to supply the northern slope of the Miami and Erie Canal.
LOOKING DOWN THE EAST RESERVOIR CREVASSE
In the wreckage are the remains of a saloon and of a concrete bridge.
During the middle of the last century, just prior to the Civil War, these canals were very active, and brought in a gross revenue, during some years, of over $500,000. In 1851 the gross earnings were over $799,000, and the net earnings almost $470,000. But later, the decline came, as it did on all of the old canals. As the canal section and lock dimensions were out-grown by the demands of modern traffic, a gradual abandonment of navigation followed, until now, for many years, there has been no canal freight traffic at all. Some of the branch and feeder canals have been officially abandoned, and either left to deteriorate without attention, or else filled up. Several of the reservoirs were dedicated by the legislature, by several acts passed since 1894, to use as public parks and pleasure resorts, with the provision, however, that they must be maintained for canal purposes.
For the past few years, therefore, the only revenues from the canals have been from the leasing of lands for oil well drilling and from the sale of water or water power to private or municipal water works and industrial plants. An annual appropriation has been made, in addition, to assist in meeting the expense of maintenance. There has, therefore, been no great stimulus to comprehensive and thorough work, and probably a great deal of the maintenance has been of a perfunctory character. The canals and reservoirs are in charge of a Board of Public Works of three members, but neither this nor any other state body or official appears to have had the specific duty of investigating these reservoirs from the sole point of view of public safety.
The Portage Lakes, about six miles south of Akron, were provided with no spillway whatever. The only way water could be discharged from them was through a thirty-six inch pipe. At the beginning of the rain-storm, the level in the reservoirs was within about one foot of the top of the embankment. It was not surprising, therefore, that the lakes filled up, overflowed the low embankment and washed out a crevasse about twenty-five feet deep and nearly 200 feet wide. The water overflowed a considerable area of low farm lands.
At the Lewistown Reservoir, which covers 6,000 acres, about a quarter of a mile of the west embankment was overflowed continuously for a day and a half. Waves dashed over the top of the south bank for several days. Both banks were almost despaired of, and a large force of men, including cottagers and citizens from neighboring towns, worked hard, placing logs and sand bags, to save them. In this they were successful, but a large area south of the reservoir was overflowed.
The Loramie Reservoir of 1,830 acres was already filled to above the spillway level when the rain started, and the water reached a maximum elevation of about four feet above the 200 foot spillway. Two small crevasses about twenty and twenty-five feet wide respectively and five or six feet deep, were washed out at a low portion of the embankment.