Erie Canal Under Construction - an unusual photo

[magpie patrick]

Taken from the Historic Erie Canal Facebook Group. The labelling suggests this is lock E7, although if it is it's back to front. What's interesting though is the mahoosive wooden gates with balance beams. This has caused a stir in the group as the accepted wisdom is the locks on the barge canal were built with steel gates that were powered by electricity (often generated alongside the lock). 

 

It's obviously not the second Erie Canal that closed in 1917 - the people would be midgets if it were

 

This the kind of gates normally associated withe The NYS Barge Canal locks 

I'm guessing few on here will know the lock but if anyone has any thoughts I'd love to hear them!

[David Mack]

30 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

What's interesting though is the mahoosive wooden gates with balance beams.

Those gates wouldn't look half so mahoosive if the lower pound was in water.

[magnetman]

Could they be temporary gates?

Edited November 18, 2023 by magnetman

[magpie patrick]

21 hours ago, magnetman said:

Could they be temporary gates?

That was a thought in the group - leads to the question "why" and I guess the answer may be that they needed to use the lock before it was finished, maybe to get construction traffic through it, and in the grand scheme of things a temporary set of gates wasn't that expensive (especially bearing in mind NYS has much more timber available than we do or did) 

 

There's also some doubt about which lock it is - the OP says it's not back to front, if they have the negative they can tell. E7, the lock at Vischers Ferry, is on the left hand bank of the river.

 

I wonder if @Pluto has an American twin? 🤔 

[mykaskin]

If you look at the size of the people in the original image, it looks more like a GU sized lock like the originals. Here is a great photo showing both sized locks, and you can see the originals gates were made exactly like the OP's photo. My guess since this is obviously a new lock dated as 1913 that a temporary old sized lock was needed probably due to changes in water levels when they were building the barge canal.

 

Found it - known as Junction lock - was temporary:

 

[magpie patrick]

3 hours ago, mykaskin said:

If you look at the size of the people in the original image, it looks more like a GU sized lock like the originals. Here is a great photo showing both sized locks, and you can see the originals gates were made exactly like the OP's photo. My guess since this is obviously a new lock dated as 1913 that a temporary old sized lock was needed probably due to changes in water levels when they were building the barge canal.

 

Found it - known as Junction lock - was temporary:

 

Thank you! 

[Pluto]

A couple of files with some background to the development of the canal.

1925 finch_history.pdf