The St. Helena III is pulled by a mule team along a restored section of the Ohio & Erie Canal just above Lock 4 (seen in the background next to a locktenders house) in Canal Fulton, Ohio. This replica canal boat is built to resemble a freight boat. Boats had two mule teams; one that hauled the boat and another that rested on board. The boats typically carried agricultural products, lumber and coal. The opening of the canal gave farmers a transportation method to get their goods to market and the result turned Ohio into an economic powerhouse.

If this picture had been taken with a vintage camera from the canal era and was in black and white I think that it would be very difficult to tell it apart from one actually taken during the canal era. Having looked at many photos from that time period I'd say the one exception might be that the grass on the towpath would probably have been worn away a lot more if not completely. There was a lot of boat traffic on the canal in its heyday. Right of way for boats and mule teams moving in opposite directions along the canal often created problems. This photo was taken in the early 1990s, although this area has changed very little in the past ten years.

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