Ohio Legislature Authorizes Canals

February 4, 1825:

The Ohio Legislature authorizes the construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal and the Miami and Erie Canal. 

What a project.  Here's a bit of history about the construction of Grand Lake St. Mary's, which served as a reservoir for the Miami and Erie Canal:

Grand Lake St. Marys came into being as a reservoir to supply water for the Miami & Erie Canal. It was begun in 1837, long before the days of mechanized equipment. The lake was constructed by men wielding shovels and axes - they cut down trees in the great swamp, which was to be a natural storage place for the water needed to supply the canal and operate its locks. Seventeen hundred men, mostly Irish and German immigrants, were employed in building the east and west banks of the reservoir. They worked from sunrise to sunset. Their wages amounted to 30 cents a day plus one jigger of whiskey (much relied on to combat malaria).
The lake was completed in 1845 at a cost of $600,000 and, for many years, the 17,500-acre reservoir was the largest artificial body of water in the world. The lake has 52 miles of shoreline and is approximately nine miles long and three miles wide. It is still the largest artificial body of water in the world built without the use of machinery.

Wow, thirty cents and a jigger of whiskey a day.  If you've ever wondered why that lake is so shallow and why there are so many stumps, think how deep you'd dig it and how many stumps you would remove if you were using axes, shovels and horses to do the work.

That wasn't very deep water drilling right there.