Warren County Canal

Lebanon was at the crossroads of two major roads, the highway from Cincinnati to Columbus (later U.S. Route 42) and the road from Chillicothe to the College Township (Oxford), but Lebanon businessmen and civic leaders wanted better transportation facilities and successfully lobbied for their own canal, part of the canal fever of the first third of the 19th century.

Work began that same year and the canal was navigable from the Ohio River at Cincinnati to Middletown in December 1827.

On his trip to the Buckeye State, he visited Lebanon, staying at the Golden Lamb Inn.

The village's inhabitants caught the "canal fever" of the day and demanded they too have access to the new waterway.

On February 22, 1830, the Ohio General Assembly incorporated a private corporation to construct and operate the branch to Lebanon, the Warren County Canal Company.

The Warren County Canal was made completely navigable in 1840, it having reached Lock 2 near Lebanon on March 15, 1839.

This site is about 200 feet (61 m) south of the present Central Avenue; Verity Parkway follows the old path of the Miami and Erie (39°30′55.7″N 84°24′08.6″W / 39.515472°N 84.402389°W / 39.515472; -84.402389).

The canal was fed from water from the North and East Forks of Turtle Creek at Lebanon.

Lock 3 was about a mile (2 km) southwest of Lebanon near Glosser Road and Turtle Creek.

The stream frequently jumped its banks and flooded the canal, depositing sediment that required constant dredging and repairs.

[2] He submitted a report to the State Board of Public Works which estimated $31,613, would be needed to repair the Warren County Canal.

After it closed around 1970, the City of Lebanon acquired the land, eventually turning it into Colonial Park.