Capt. Cleaveland's plans for his new settlement were ambitious, and he built a number of substantial roads through the forests, usually following the old Indian trails, now the right of way of the New York Central and other lines. With the opening of the Ohio Canal to the Ohio River (1832), Cleveland became the natural outlet on Lake Erie for Ohio's extensive agricultural and mineral products. The discovery and commercial exploitation (beginning about 1840) of large deposits of iron ore in the Lake Superior region placed Cleveland in a strategic position between these vast ore fields and the coal and oil resources of Ohio, Pa., and W. Va., and it is from this time that the city's great commercial importance really dates. [Illustration: Moses Cleaveland Moses Cleaveland (1754-1806) was born at Canterbury, Conn., and graduated from Yale. After serving in the U.S. Army, where he attained the rank of captain, he practiced law and entered the Connecticut legislature. Later, he organized the Connecticut Land Co., which in 1795 purchased a large portion of the Western Reserve.] In 1836 Cleveland had been chartered as a city. The name, though chosen in honour of Capt. Cleaveland, had been abbreviated to its present form some years before. Tradition credits the changed form to a newspaper which left out the letter "a" in order to make the word fit a headline. The building of the railways during the decade 1850-1860, and the stimulus to industry during the Civil War, when Cleveland supplied large quantities of iron products and clothing to the government, gave impetus to the city's growth. With a population of only 1,076 in 1830 and 6,071 in 1840, Cleveland had become in 1870 a city of 92,829 (more than double its population in 1860). Thirty years later (1900) the population had grown to 381,768 and in 1920 it was 796,836, an increase of 42 per cent over 1910. The later history of Cleveland has been distinguished for some notable experiments in city planning, popular education and municipal ownership (particularly with respect to street railways). The street railway situation had been a source of trouble ever since 1899, when a strike of serious proportions occurred. Mobs attacked the cars, some of which were blown up with dynamite. In 1901 Tom Johnson was first elected mayor, and, largely as a result of his advocacy, municipal ownership became a greater issue in Cleveland than in any other great city in the country.