In the second half of the 19th century, the area between the Niagara River and River Road from this point south for 3 miles to the Erie Canal was filled with lumber drying in stacks about 12 feet square and up to 16 feet high. The only breaks in the lumber stacks were for railroad tracks leading from the main lines to each yard and buildings housing mills and lumber company offices. Across River Road were other yards of timber and lumber-related businesses. Planing mills and sash and blind manufacturers were the most numerous, while others included local furniture makers and coopers. The abundance of wood of many varieties led to the establishment of wood-related industries in North Tonawanda, where several furniture makers were headquartered. Allan Herschell used locally processed wood in carousels shipped nationwide from North Tonawanda. The Richardson Boat Company used a mix of North American hardwoods processed here to build yachts and cabin cruisers to order over the winter, then sailed them down the canal to customers by way of the Hudson River and the inter-coastal waterway when the Erie Canal opened, with a similar sail-away just before the canal closed to boating in the fall. Auto-Wheel Coaster also used locally processed wood to make children's toys, especially coaster sleds, as well as toboggans, bobsleds, wagons, scooters, and tricycles. These wood products used metal fasteners supplied by the Buffalo Bolt Company on Oliver Street, whose peak production year brought more than 600,000,000 bolts, nuts, screws, and other fasteners and employed hundreds of people around the clock, many from surrounding towns. The wood pulp industry also used otherwise undesirable wood, shipping the pulp to paper-making factories in the East.