By CRAIG FREILICH

The population of St. Lawrence County has fallen to the lowest it has been since the St. Lawrence Seaway opened.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the estimated population of the county for 2014 was 111,400.

That is lower than their estimate of 111,963 from 2013, and down from the official 2010 census count, 111,944.

The 2014 estimate is the lowest the county’s population has been since the census of 1950 when the count was 98,879.

In 1960, the count was 111,239. That was 12.5 percent higher than the previous count. The St. Lawrence Seaway and the neighboring Moses-Saunders Power Dam projects both were completed during the 1950s.

By 1970, the county’s population was tallied at 111,991.

In 1980, after the expansion of Fort Drum in next-door Jefferson County, the census counted 119,254 people, the highest number in the county’s history, and up 6.5 percent from 10 years earlier.

In 1810, during the first census since the establishment of St. Lawrence County, the federal government counted 7,885 people living in the county.

In 1820, just 10 years later, the population had jumped by more than 100 percent to 16,037, as settlement was facilitated by land purchases.

A steady rise in population continued through 1860, by which time the county had 83,689 people living in it.

The Civil War intervened, and over the next several decades, growth never exceeded the 4.7 percent increase noted in the 1900 census. The population dropped slightly, as recorded in the 1910 and 1920 censuses, but topped 90,000 for the first time in the 1930 census.

Slow growth continued through the 1980 census, when the county’s tally rose by 6.5 percent over the 1970 census.

Since the 1980 tally of 119,254 the population of the county has fallen by seven percent to 111,400 in 2014, according to the latest Census Bureau estimate.

All these figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau, which maintains records and analysis available to the public at www.Census.gov.