July 28-29, 2017

 

 

 

 

Lakeside Beach State Park, Waterport, NY located on Lake Ontario.

 

 

 

Lockport Cave & Underground Boat Ride on the Erie Canal.

 

Our tour began at the ticket center.

 

 

And then proceeded across the street and down a flight of stairs to the Erie Canal Flight of Five locks.

Lockport’s staircase of five locks, ascending a height of 60 feet within a distance of only 550 feet, is one of the best-preserved structures remaining from the Enlarged Erie era. 

When surveyors laid out the route for the construction of the original Erie Canal, they selected the site of present-day Lockport as the location where the canal would traverse the sheer rock cliff of the Niagara Escarpment.

They designed a set of double locks, five locks lifting boats west to Buffalo and five locks returning boats east to Albany.

In 1842 both sets of Lockport’s Flight of Five Locks underwent extensive widening and deepening. 

The construction of the Erie Barge Canal resulted in demolition and removal of the southern portion of the Flight of Five, to be replaced by two mechanized locks in 1918.

The upgrade resulted in Locks being enlarged from 110’ to 329’ long and from 18’ to 45’ wide, with a combined vertical life of approximately 50’. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continuing on with the tour we entered a 1,700 foot long water power tunnel blasted out of solid rock in the early days of the Erie Canal to supply power to three industries.

 

 

 

 

 

The tour ends with an underground boat ride.