Junction: The Canals Giveth and the Canals Taketh

From the Progress of May 19, 1976. By Louie Levy.

The junction of two canals once promised to be a great city, but its fate was sealed as the waterways were abandoned

FOR A 10-YEAR PERIOD from 1844-54, Junction was where it was at. When the Miami-Erie and Wabash canals were operating at full tilt, it appeared the settlement at the junction of the two canals was destined for greatness.

However, in 1854 much of the Wabash Canal was abandoned and half of Junction’s life blood had dried up. It was all downhill after that date. When the Miami-Erie Canal was abandoned in the late 1890s at Junction, the final nail was pounded in the coffin.

But what about those boom years?

John Mason Sr. and Nathan Shirley laid out the canal town in Auglaize Township in 1842. The Wabash Canal reached Junction the following year.

People wanting to get in on the ground floor of something big wasted no time moving to Junction. One such man was Captain Dana Columbia, a civil engineer. He sold his property on Columbia Street in Fort Wayne without hesitation when he heard about Junction.

Columbia reasoned the new Ohio town would become bigger and better than Fort Wayne. He felt his chances at gaining wealth as a civil engineer in Junction were excellent.

Junction’s population grew until it peaked at 300. It aspired to become the county seat.

Businesses appealing to canal travelers and workers sprung up like mushrooms in the canal town. Two or three hotels and three or four large, well-filled dry goods stores and groceries located there.

Three large grain warehouses were constructed along the canals. A canal collector’s office and residence and at least six saloons made Junction quite an attraction.

The wharves were constantly lined with freighters loading and unloading cargo during the canal’s heyday.

A distillery and brewery were built later and the number of grocery stores jumped to five. The going price for a gallon of whiskey was 65 cents.

Industry didn’t locate immediately in Junction. But, before the canals had dried up there was a hoop shop, a sawmill, a flour mill that later burned down, and two blacksmith shops. Junction’s last blacksmith was Harding “Shorty” Anderson who died in October 1967.

The saloons hadn’t been open too many years before the refining influence of the church arrived. The Christian Church was the first to organize in Junction in 1849. The Methodists built a structure in 1857 that is still used for services. It is the oldest church in the county.

United Brethren, German Reformed, and Catholics followed later. The new St. Mary’s Catholic Church, built in 1912, cost about $16,000.

A post office was established in Junction in 1842, and in 1854 the first public school in Auglaize Township was built there. The one-story 28x30 foot structure was later purchased by the United Brethren congregation for a church. A two-story brick school was built in 1876 for $2,500, and in the early 1900s a one-story frame building was built for Junction students. It was used until 1951 when the school was transferred to the old Auglaize-Brown Local School.

Three doctors have served Junction’s past: Doctors Hager, Dix and Milholland. The latter died in 1939.

Everett Budd noted Junction’s deterioration in 1888 when he said, “In common parlance, the place has been going down hill for several years, and farmers in that vicinity remark that ‘its site will make a good corn field when its rubbish is moved away.’”

Today the condition of this once bustling canal center has deteriorated to a most disgraceful state. None of the early buildings were preserved; however, two stone aqueducts along the Miami-Erie Canal are still standing — a tribute to the workmanship of the builders, not Paulding Countians interested in preserving some remnant of this golden era.

What farmers once said would “make a good corn field” has been put to “better use” by some of the present owners. Rats, junk cars, and miscellaneous trash now occupy the space where hotels, stores, saloons and other remembrances of a past day once proudly stood.

Our nation’s bicentennial year would be a fine, albeit long overdue, time to restore and clean up Junction.

Fort Brown was one of a chain of posts built along the Auglaize River by Gen. William Henry Harrison’s army in his campaigns against the British and Indians during the War of 1812.