The original Erie Canal was built between 1817 and 1825, and its success led almost immediately to plans for enlargement. Authorized in 1836 and completed in 1862, the canal and its locks were widened and deepened to handle larger boats. Thomas Evershed, a 19-year-old immigrant from England, served as the engineer in charge of this major expansion project and created a drawing of Lockport in 1839. As canal construction moved from east to west, towns and villages grew rapidly, and Lockport developed from a shantytown for canal workers into a prosperous business community. The Niagara Escarpment, a 450-million-year-old rock formation stretching from Western New York through Canada to Wisconsin and creating Niagara Falls, had to be ascended for the canal to reach Buffalo. Engineers chose this location because the escarpment rose only 60 feet there, requiring the least excavation, though it still posed the canal's greatest construction challenge. Evershed's drawing shows the double set of Flight of Five locks for eastbound and westbound traffic, and the westbound flight built between 1838 and 1842 during the enlargement still remains.