The Ohio-Erie Canal was built with two summit levels, one near Akron in Summit County and the other at the Licking Summit in Licking and Fairfield Counties, with reservoirs created on both summits to supply water. From Summit County the canal extended north through Cleveland to Lake Erie and south toward Muskingum County near Dresden, while the Licking Summit ran north to Newark in Licking County and then east to Muskingum County, eventually reaching the low point near Dresden where it joined the Summit County descent. The canal used no pumps, relying instead on gravity and lift locks at changes in elevation to raise or lower boats like an elevator between canal levels. Each lock chamber measured 90 feet long and 15 feet wide, fitting one boat at a time with little clearance, and when a boat reached a lock the driver unhitched the tow animals and crews pulled the boat into the lock with pole pikes before gates were closed and a valve changed the water level. The Ohio and Erie Canal was 309 miles long and included 151 locks and 27 aqueducts. Its longest aqueduct, 448 feet long, crossed the Scioto River just south of Circleville and was destroyed by fire in 1915. Canal boats averaged 2 mph and offered a faster, easier, and cheaper way to move goods and people than wagons. Minimum canal dimensions were 40 feet wide at the waterline, 28 feet wide at the bottom, and 4 feet deep, though in some places the canal reached 150 feet in width and 12 feet in depth. Building the Ohio-Erie Canal took 9 years, and the section in Pickaway County, including the aqueduct over the Scioto River south of Circleville, took about a year. Freight commonly carried on the canal included whiskey, grain, coal, furniture, livestock, salt pork, flour, sugar, and furs, and the railroad track just south of the park on the Pickaway Trail became known as Whiskey Switch because goods were transferred there between canal and railroad. A fast packed canal boat could travel from Cleveland to Portsmouth in about 3 1/2 days.