<Dd> This article is part of the history of rail transport by country series . </Dd> <P> Wooden railroads, called wagonways, were built in the United States starting from the 1720s . A railroad was reportedly used in the construction of the French fortress at Louisburg, Nova Scotia, in 1720 . Between 1762 and 1764, at the close of the French and Indian War, a gravity railroad (mechanized tramway) (Montresor's Tramway) is built by British military engineers up the steep riverside terrain near the Niagara River waterfall's escarpment at the Niagara Portage (which the local Senecas called "Crawl on All Fours .") in Lewiston, New York . </P> <P> Railroads played a large role in the development of the United States from the industrial revolution in the North - east (1810--1850) to the settlement of the West (1850--1890). The American railroad mania began with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1826 and flourished until the Panic of 1873 bankrupted many companies and temporarily ended growth . </P> <P> Although the South started early to build railways, it concentrated on short lines linking cotton regions to oceanic or river ports, and the absence of an interconnected network was a major handicap during the Civil War . The North and Midwest constructed networks that linked every city by 1860 . In the heavily settled Midwestern Corn Belt, over 80 percent of farms were within 5 miles (8 km) of a railway, facilitating the shipment of grain, hogs, and cattle to national and international markets . A large number of short lines were built, but thanks to a fast developing financial system based on Wall Street and oriented to railway bonds, the majority were consolidated into 20 trunk lines by 1890 . State and local governments often subsidized lines, but rarely owned them . </P>

Where did most of the nation's manufacturing take place during the first decade of the 1800s