In the spring of 1823, work on the Erie Canal at this end of the state began with the building of a dam to raise the water level of Tonawanda Creek 4 to 4 1/2 feet, allowing its ten-mile stretch between Pendleton and Tonawanda to become part of the canal without digging. Digging then resumed where the canal veered from the dam to travel westward through the village of Tonawanda and along the Niagara River to Buffalo. In March 1916, a runaway canal boat, carried over the dam by spring flood waters and melting snow, smashed into the creek abutments, while the nearby railroad bridge was unharmed and the long bridge beyond it was damaged. By 1918, the dam was gone and the Tonawandas were the terminus of the new N.Y.S. Barge Canal. Over the next decade, the old canal that had flowed westward through downtown Tonawanda became a local dump and was filled with trash and refuse, as the old Erie Canal, its towpath, and the animal-powered traffic of an earlier era passed into history.