Amsterdam grew on the north bank of the Mohawk River, where Chuctanunda Creek provided abundant water power for manufacturing. The city became the Carpet City, with the massive Sanford and Shuttleworth mills turning out thousands of yards of floor coverings every day, while other factories produced brooms, paint, pearl buttons, and knitted underwear. The Erie Canal ran along the south side of the river through the hamlet of Port Jackson, which served as Amsterdam's gateway to the Erie Canal, Great Lakes, and Atlantic Ocean from the 1820s to 1915. The canal, and later railroads, carried wool, jute, and other raw materials to Amsterdam's manufacturers and shipped finished products outward. A gasworks converted coal into illuminating gas that lit factories and homes before electricity. Opened in 1825, the Erie Canal connected the Atlantic Ocean to the upper Great Lakes and ran more than 350 miles east-west between the Hudson River near Albany and Lake Erie at Buffalo, with locks raising and lowering boats more than 570 feet along the way. It opened the interior of North America, transformed New York into the Empire State, carried settlers and immigrants westward, gave rise to cities and new industries in New York and the Midwest, and moved farm and factory products east to Atlantic markets. Enlarged over the years to accommodate larger boats, it still operates as an active and historic waterway, joined by the Cayuga-Seneca, Oswego, and Champlain canals in a network linking the Great Lakes, Finger Lakes, Lake Champlain, and Canadian waters.