In 1820, the middle section of the Erie Canal was completed from Utica on the Mohawk River to Montezuma on the Seneca River. Hugging the base of the Allegheny escarpment, it crossed thinly settled parts of Onondaga County, where Syracuse, Jordan, and a few other hamlets lay along its route, while larger villages to the south, including Manlius and Fayetteville, had developed on the circa 1800 Seneca Turnpike and its northern branch. The canal brought the rise of Syracuse and nearby salt-producing settlements, and other villages grew where highway or water connections attracted commerce. Manlius Center stood at a busy crossroads directly on the canal, while Fayetteville and Manlius were supported by a canal feeder from Limestone Creek that also served as a navigation link. The Erie Canal's great promise for long-distance commerce, surpassing turnpikes and early water routes in speed, cost, and reliability, brought immediate growth to Onondaga County. By 1825, linking the Hudson River and Lake Erie, it established national markets for Onondaga's salt and gypsum industries and created demand for local limestone and hydraulic cement used in the two Erie enlargements, the Oswego, and other lateral canals. During the canal period, Manlius Center remained a small trading center in the shadow of Syracuse and Fayetteville; at its peak it had a post office, a hotel and tavern, two or three stores, a schoolhouse, and about twenty dwellings, and its residents worked chiefly in canal labor and farming.