Opinion ID: 2691733
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Canal Company and the Railroad Lease

Text: {¶ 3} In 1827, the General Assembly chartered the Milan Canal Company to construct and operate a canal from Milan, Ohio, to the Huron River. SUPREME COURT OF OHIO The act incorporating the canal company gave it authority “to enter upon, and take possession of any lands, waters and streams necessary to make said canal” and provided that “a complete title to the premises, to the extent and for the purposes set forth in or contemplated by this act, shall be thereby vested and forever remain in said company, and their successors.” Section 8, Act of January 24, 1827, 25th General Assembly, Ohio Laws 96-97. {¶ 4} Noncontiguous tracts of land from Ebeneser Merry and Kneeland Townsend were acquired by the canal company as part of the canal corridor. In 1881, the canal company entered into a 99-year lease with the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway Company for a 150-foot-wide right-of-way to construct and operate a railroad. The lease was renewed in 1980 for another 99 years. {¶ 5} The canal company was dissolved in 1904, and its property interests devolved to a testamentary trust and its trustee, Key Trust Company of Ohio. The dissolution order specified that the canal company owned land “within the bounds of a strip of land one hundred and fifty feet in width, commencing at the southerly end of the canal basin of said Milan Canal Company    and running thence in a northerly direction to the mouth of the Huron River,    the east and west lines of said strip of land being one hundred and fifty feet apart and running north parallel with each other and with the central line of said railroad, as surveyed, located and being constructed.” {¶ 6} Rail traffic on the leased property ceased in the 1980s, and portions of the rail line were paved. In 1995, the railroad company’s successor quitclaimed its interests to respondent Board of Commissioners of Erie MetroParks, a park district created pursuant to R.C. 1545.01 et seq. The board acquired the property to build a recreational trail. 2. Relators’ Acquisition of Canal Company Property {¶ 7} In February 2000, Key Trust conveyed a portion of the canal company property to relators Richard and Carol Rinella. Key Trust conveyed the 2 January Term, 2010 remaining property owned by the canal company to Edwin and Lisa Coles and Buffalo Prairie, Ltd., a limited-liability company of which Edwin Coles serves as president. Sections of the canal company property were then conveyed to others, including relators Gerald O.E. Nickoli and Robin L.B. Nickoli; trustee Patricia A. Sipp (f.k.a. Charville), as to an undivided half interest, and successor trustees Patricia A. Sipp, Mark Charville, and David A. Charville, as to an undivided half interest (“Charville trusts”); Douglas Hildebrand; Dale A. Hohler and Ellen H. Hohler; Theresa R. Johnston; cotrustees John F. Landoll and Virginia A. Landoll; Michael P. Meyer and Cheryl Lyons; Donna J. Rasnick; Maria Sperling; Gary R. Steiner and Virginia M. Steiner; and Rita M. Beverick. 3. Huron River Greenway {¶ 8} By the end of 1998, respondent Erie MetroParks had started construction of a recreational trail known as the Huron River Greenway through the corridor, which is a 66-foot-wide path. The trail was opened to the public in 2003. The former canal corridor runs through each relator’s property; the recreational trail is thus located within relators’ properties. None of relators’ property, aside from a .9-acre piece of the Charville trusts’ property within the Townsend tract, is within the Merry or Townsend tracts.