Taylorsville MetroPark opened to the public on April 1, 1967, as one of the first Five Rivers MetroParks locations. The 1,300-acre property surrounds Taylorsville Dam, part of the Great Miami River flood control system created in 1922 by the Miami Conservancy District. Founded in 1963 to serve the greater Dayton area, Five Rivers MetroParks protects thousands of acres of open space and provides free year-round recreation, education, and conservation opportunities made possible by Montgomery County property tax support. Taylorsville includes the site of Tadmor, once a bustling village at the intersection of the Miami-Erie Canal, National Road, Dayton-Michigan Railroad, and the Great Miami River, where repeated floods stifled growth before the village was abandoned when Taylorsville Dam was constructed. The park’s trails include the Great Miami River Trail, the Buckeye Trail, and the North Country National Scenic Trail, which converge here and connect hikers and cyclists with native forest, the former Tadmor site, canal remnants, and routes toward Dayton and along the canal corridor. The Miami-Erie Canal, built between 1825 and 1845 by 4,000 men, created a 274-mile navigable water route from Lake Erie in Toledo to the Ohio River in Cincinnati and opened Ohio to commerce and development. Near the dam stand the foundations of the Miami-Erie Aqueduct, one of 19 aqueducts on the canal, where canal boats once crossed the river on a water-filled bridge. Taylorsville Dam, constructed between February 1918 and November 1921 and designed by Arthur Morgan, was the first of its kind as a dry-dam flood-protection system, holding back floodwaters after heavy rainfall while the land behind it remained mainly parkland and farmland; at the time, these dams were among the largest earthen structures in the world.