Onondaga Creek
The settlement that became Syracuse arose in a forested swampy area at the creek outlet in the early 1800s as a result of the state of NY constructing the Erie Canal and developing salt production on the shores of Onondaga Lake. From this time forward, the natural meandering flood plain of the creek was periodically channelized and straightened to facilitate uncontrolled development of the creek-side and flood plain upstream towards the Onondaga Nation Reservation. A "progress"-based economic cycle involved land developers purchasing farmland and building in the adjacent rural towns, followed by flooding, sewage, water supply, and school crises. The city of Syracuse would then respond to petitions by the new homeowners and businesses to formally ask the state legislature to annex these lands. By the turn of the twentieth century, this cycle accelerated due to the city acquiring water rights to Skaneatles lake, and the development of street car lines.
History of Syracuse, New York
The first Solvay Process Company plant in the United States was erected on the southeastern shore of Onondaga lake in 1884 and the village was given the name Solvay, New York, to commemorate its inventor, Ernest Solvay. In 1861 he developed the ammonia-soda process for the manufacture of soda ash (anhydrous sodium carbonate—a rare chemical called natrite, to distinguish it from natural natron of antiquity) The process used sodium chloride (from brine wells dug in the southern end of the Tully valley) and limestone (as a source of calcium carbonate). The process was an improvement on the earlier Leblanc process. The Syracuse Solvay plant was the incubator for a large chemical industry complex owned by Allied Signal in Syracuse. This plant, though, made Onondaga Lake the most polluted in the nation.