For more than 175 years, the Erie Canal has followed more than one path, and in some places two or three generations of canal infrastructure still exist side by side. As technology, especially mechanized boats, made it possible for the canal to cross lakes and follow wide rivers, it veered in new directions. Canal channels dug in the 19th century and old locks constructed before the Civil War were abandoned, and ports founded to handle canal traffic lost their original reason for existence. During the 19th century, the increasing size of barges made sections of the canal obsolete because the barges became too broad and deep to navigate the original locks. By the Civil War, canal infrastructure had to be widened or abandoned. With larger cranes and dredges, the canal was maintained and enlarged. Along Tonawanda Creek, existing creeks were scoured deeper to accommodate canal traffic and increase water flow. Steam shovels removed huge amounts of earth and rock, cantilevered cranes with clamshell buckets moved tons of debris, and hydraulic dredges siphoned up silt that had accumulated on the canal bottom. Market-driven demand and technological innovation produced an ever-evolving canal, three generations of infrastructure, and profound changes to the communities it served.