The Wabash & Erie Canal ran 468 miles from Toledo, Ohio, to Evansville, Indiana, linking Indiana to New York and the East Coast through the Erie Canal and to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico through the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Construction in Indiana began in 1832 in Fort Wayne, and by 1840 passenger and freight boats were regularly bringing people and manufactured goods to Delphi and Carroll County; by 1843 the canal was open to Toledo, and by 1853 it was completed to Evansville. It became a cultural conduit that brought fashions and products from eastern urban centers to Delphi and the Midwest wilderness while opening markets for Delphi's lime and paper businesses. As the longest man-made structure in the United States, it required locks, aqueducts, dams, and feeder streams, including 73 locks and 18 aqueducts in Indiana, to carry boats across uneven terrain. Locks raised or lowered boats from level to level, and in 1838 Reed Case received most of the contract for building the canal between Logansport and Lafayette; in 1844 he built the Reed Case House in Canal Park. Following the Wabash River and its tributaries helped the canal maintain a relatively level route and a dependable water supply. During Delphi's heyday, locks, dams, and the canal slip were central to handling freight, and the Dugan, Case, Spears Warehouse at the head of the slip became a main clearing house for goods. Canal boats were specially built for this system: long, narrow, and shallow enough to travel a canal about 4 feet deep and 40 feet wide and to fit locks typically 15 feet wide and 90 to 100 feet long. Usually pulled by mules or horses along a towpath, these boats carried passengers or cargo, while lock gates of timber with iron wicket gates controlled water flow so boats could be raised or lowered through the lock chamber.