1900-35 Graph Showing Production of Pig Iron and Ferro-Alloys

The great manufacturing centres are Cleveland, Akron, Cin cinnati, Toledo, Youngstown, Dayton, Columbus, Canton and Springfield. The value of the products of these cities in 1925 amounted to approximately 78% of that for the entire State. A large portion of the iron and steel was manufactured in Cleveland, Youngstown, Steubenville, Lorain, Bellaire, Cleveland Heights, East Youngstown and Irontown. Most of the motor vehicles were manufactured in Cleveland and Cincinnati; most of the cash reg isters and calculating machines in Dayton ; most of the motor tyres and other rubber goods in Akron.

Transportation and Commerce.

The most important nat ural means of transportation are the Ohio river on the southern border and Lake Erie on the northern border. One of the first great public improvements made within the State was the con nection of these waterways by two canals—the Ohio and Erie canal from Cleveland to Portsmouth, and the Miami and Erie canal from Toledo to Cincinnati. The Ohio and Erie was opened throughout its entire length (309m.) in 1832. The Miami and Erie was completed from Middletown to Cincinnati in 1827 ; in 1845 it was opened to the lake (250m. from Cincinnati). A flood in 1913 wrecked these canals, and they had not been restored by 1928. The national Government began in 1825 to extend the National road across Ohio from Bridgeport, opposite Wheeling, West Virginia, through Zanesville and Columbus, and completed it to Springfield in 1837. Before the completion of the Miami and Erie canal to Toledo, the building of railways was begun in this region, and in 1836 a railway was completed from that city to Adrian, Michigan. At the close of 1934 there was a total mileage of 8,585 as compared with 9,159 in 1915, this reduction being a part of a general shrinkage prevalent throughout the country during this period. As the building of steam railways lessened and then ceased, the building of suburban and inter-urban electric railways was begun. These railways were rapidly extended until a maximum of 4,236m. was reached in 1917, and all the more populous districts were connected by them; in 1932 there were 5o companies operating a total of 2,513m. within the State. There were on Jan. r, 1935, 12,204m. of highway in the State system. Of this total 12,144m. were surfaced. The total motor vehicle registration for 15 months ending March 31, 1936, was The 8 Lake Erie ports of Ohio had, in a total commerce amounting to 52,384,000 tons and a foreign trade of $33,295,000. Chief among the ports was Toledo with over 34% of the total. Others of great importance were Cleveland, Ashtabula, Sandusky, Conneaut, Lorain and Fairport. Toledo, according to the Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers, U. S. Army, had over 32% of the foreign trade (imports 65,854 tons, exports tons). Cincinnati is the State's chief port on the Ohio river.

History.

Ohio was the pioneer State of the old North-West Territory, which embraced also what are now the States of In diana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin and the north-east corner of Minnesota. When explored by Europeans, late in the first half of the 17th century, the territory included within what is now Ohio was a battle-ground of Indian tribes. From the middle to the close of the 17th century the French were establishing a claim to the territory between the Great Lakes and the Ohio river by dis covery and occupation.

About 1730 English traders from Pennsylvania and Virginia began to visit the eastern and southern parts of the territory and a conflict approached as a French Canadian expedition under Celeron de Bienville took formal possession of the upper Ohio valley by planting leaden plates at the mouth of the principal streams. This was in 1749 and in the same year George II. char

tered the first Ohio company, formed by Virginians and London merchants trading with Virginia for the purpose of colonizing the West. This company, in 1750, sent Christopher Gist down the Ohio river to explore the country as far as the mouth of the Scioto river, and four years later the erection of a fort was begun in its interest at the forks of the Ohio. The French drove the English away and completed the fort (Ft. Duquesne) for themselves. The Seven Years' War was the immediate consequence and this ended in the cession of the entire North-West to Great Britain. The former Indian allies of the French, however, immediately rose up in opposition to British rule in what is known as the conspiracy of Pontiac (see PoNTIAC), and the suppression of this was not completed until Col. Henry Bouquet made an expedition (1764) into the valley of the Muskingum and there brought the Shawnees, Wyandots and Delawares to terms. With the North-West won from the French, Great Britain no longer recognized those claims of her Colonies to this territory which she had asserted against that nation, but in a royal proclamation of Oct. 7, 1763, the granting of land west of the Alleghenies was forbidden and on June 2 2, 1774 parliament passed the Quebec act which annexed the region to the province of Quebec. This was one of the grievances which brought on the Revolutionary War, during which the North-West was won for the Americans by George Rogers Clark (q.v.). Dur ing that war also, those States which had no claims in the West contended that title of these western lands should pass to the Union and when the Articles of Confederation were submitted for ratification in 1777, Maryland refused to ratify them except on that condition. The result was that New York ceded its claim to the United States in i78o, Virginia in 1784, Massachusetts in 1785 and Connecticut in 1786. Connecticut, however, excepted a strip bordering on Lake Erie for 120 m. and containing 3,250,00o acres. This district, known as the Western Reserve, was ceded in 180o on condition that Congress would guarantee the titles to land al ready granted by the State. Virginia reserved a tract between the Little Miami and Scioto rivers, known as the Virginia Military district, for her soldiers in the Revolutionary War. When the war was over and these cessions had been made, a great number of war veterans wished an opportunity to repair their broken for tunes in the West, and Congress, hopeful of receiving a large revenue from the sale of lands here, passed an ordinance on May 20, 1785, by which the present national system of land-surveys into townships 6 m. sq. was inaugurated in what is now south west Ohio in the summer of 1786. In March 1786 the second Ohio company (q.v.), composed chiefly of New England officers and soldiers, was organized in Boston, Mass., with a view to founding a new State between Lake Erie and the Ohio river. The famous North-West Ordinance was passed by Congress on July 13, 1787. This instrument provided a temporary govern ment for the territory with the understanding that, as soon as the population was sufficient, the representative system should be adopted, and later that States should be formed and admitted into the Union. There were to be not less than three nor more than five States.