Authorized in 1846, a canal from Terre Haute to Evansville included the Maysville Division along the White River, which stretched more than 23 miles from Newberry through Owl Prairie, now Elnora, to Maysville, with part of it paralleling what is now S.R. 57. Contracts were let in June 1849, but construction was delayed by cholera outbreaks among workers, many of them Irish immigrants. Navigation between Newberry and Maysville opened in June 1852. By 1853, the Wabash and Erie Canal, America’s longest at about 460 miles, linked Lake Erie at Toledo, Ohio, with the Ohio River at Evansville. By 1860, most of the southern section was no longer used because of repair costs and railroad competition, and the entire canal in Indiana was sold at auction in 1876.