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174 THOMPSON'S COAST PILOT, Railroad, running to Chicago, and the Detroit, Monroe and Toledo Railroad. It is also the eastern terminus of the Toledo, Wabash and Western Railroad, running in a southwesterly direction through the Maumee and Wabash Valleys, crossing the eastern line of the State of Illinois, about 125 miles south of Chicago, and continuing in a southwesterly course through Danville, Springfield, Jacksonville, Naples, etc., in Central Illinois, to the Mississippi River, and con- necting with the Hannibal and St. Joseph Road, which stretches nearly due west through the State of Missouri to St. Joseph, on the Missouri River. The Dayton and Michigan Railroad, which connects Toledo with Cincinnati, is much the shortest railroad line connecting -- Lake Erie with the Ohio River. Besides the above important roads, the Cleveland and Toledo railroad terminates here. Toledo is the nearest point for the immense country traversed by these canals and railroads, where a transfer can be made of freight to the more cheap transportation by the lakes, and thence through the Erie Canal, Welland Canal, or Oswego Canal, to the seaboard. It is not merely the country traversed by these canals and railroads that send their products, and receive their merchandise, through Toledo, but many portions of the States of Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri, find Toledo the cheapest and most expeditious lake port for the interchange and transfer of their products and merchan- dise. | : This city is the capital of Lucas county, Ohio, where is situated a court house and jail, several fine churches, a magnificent High School edifice, and five large brick ward school houses; a young men's association, that sustains a course of lectures during the winter ; two banks, two insurance companies, six hotels, and a great number of stores and storehouses; also several extensive manufacturing establishments. The principal hotels are the Island House and Oliver House. The population of Toledo in 1850 was about 4,000, and now it is supposed to contain 17,000 inhabitants, and is rapidly increas- ing in wealth and numbers. The shipping interest is increasing, here being trans-shipped annually an amount of grain exceeded only by Chicago, and other kinds of agricultural products of the Great West. This city is destined, like Chicago, to export direct to Euro- pean ports. ;