The venture was highly successful from a financial point of view thanks to outrageous tolls that were charged. A twenty-four thousand dollar boat of three hundred tons running between Cincinnati and St. Louis expended in tolls in the Louisville and Portland Canal in five years a sum equal to her entire cost. "A boat of one hundred and ninety tons, owned at Cincinnati, has been in the habit of making her trips from this city to St. Louis and back, in two weeks, and has passed the canal _four_ times in one month. Her toll, each trip, at $60 per ton, was $114, and her toll for one month was $456, or at the rate of $5,472 per year, which is nearly half the value of such a boat."[77] From 1831 to 1843, 13,756 steamboats passed through the Canal, and 4,701 keeland flat-boats, with a total tonnage of two and a half million tons, netting a toll of $1,227,625.20.[78] On the stock owned by the United States a cash dividend (to 1843) of $258,378 was earned--$23,378 more than the Government's original investment. Other stockholders fared equally well from this systematic highway robbery. Such a drain on the public purse as was the Louisville-Portland Canal in the "good old days" would not be countenanced a moment today. The canal was rebuilt and enlarged in 1872, and in 1874 it passed into the control of the United States by the authority of Congress. Following is a synopsis of the expenditures on account of the canal previous to June 11, 1874, the date when the United States assumed complete control and management: "Expended by the canal company on original canal. $1,019,277.09 Expended by the canal company on subsequent improvements and construction 120,000.00 Expended by the canal company for enlargement of canal 1,825,403.00 Expended by the United States for enlargement of canal, from appropriations 1,463,200.00 Expended by the United States from funds derived from toll collections 150,000.00 -------------- Total cost $4,577,880.09 _Cost of the canal to the United States._ Original stock $ 233,500 Total appropriations for enlargement 1,463,200 Canal bonds paid 1,172,000 ------------- Gross cost $2,868,700 Amount of dividends paid by the canal company to the United States 257,778 ------------- Net cost $2,610,922"[79] The following table shows the traffic, in tons, of the canal since 1886: