What was the love canal before it became a dumping site?

While history does not say what each lot of the love canal site was before it became a dump site we do know:

The area that the 1 mile of canal dug was to connect the Niagara river to Lake Ontario. The canal was not completed.

It became a sort of man made lake that people used to swim in.

The neighborhood around this was named Love Canal for this historic attempt.

The unfinished Canal became a dumping ground for municipal waste then chemical waste and finally covered over and sold in 1953.