In the 1830s, farmers and businessmen built a railroad and canal to move crops, gypsum, and flour from the mills in Caledonia, Mumford, Wheatland Center, and Garbutt to the Genesee River, Rochester, and the Erie Canal. In 1838, they constructed the Scottsville and LeRoy Railroad from Caledonia to the Scottsville mill yard on the west bank of Oatka Creek, where products were unloaded from railroad cars onto boats that traveled east on Oatka Creek to its meeting with the Scottsville and Genesee River Canal, then followed the canal to the Genesee River. To increase water available for the canal, a wooden dam was built in Oatka Creek. When the Genesee Valley Canal opened in 1840, the State closed the Scottsville and Genesee River Canal, took possession of its guard lock and dam, and converted part of the canal to supply water to the new Genesee Valley Canal. This permanently changed Scottsville’s economy: the Scottsville and LeRoy Railroad closed, river boating and the operation of warehouses on the Genesee River ceased, and after 1840 warehouses, a planing mill, and a lumber and coal yard arose at the intersection of the canals and Oatka Creek. A dam across Oatka Creek created a reservoir that supplied water to the canal through a guard gate, and the Scottsville Aqueduct was built to carry the Genesee Valley Canal across Oatka Creek.