In an 1874 prospectus, the founders of the Valley Railway Company promoted extensive coal deposits that would reach market over the Valley Railway. Although the line, the precursor to Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad, carried both passengers and freight along an 83-mile route, its strongest early appeal to investors was its potential to deliver coal to the industrial centers of Cleveland and Akron. In the 19th century, coal was an abundant, accessible, and inexpensive fuel, especially for generating steam to power transportation and industry. Cleveland and Akron first depended on coalfields in the Mahoning Valley to the east, but by the 1870s demand had outgrown that supply and attention shifted south to Tuscarawas and Stark Counties. The Valley Railway's developers took advantage of the need for a direct rail connection between those newer coalfields and Cleveland, Akron, and Canton, and by the mid-1880s coal made up about 44 percent of the total freight tonnage hauled on this route through the Cuyahoga Valley.