1915 9mw Hinckley Dam on West Canada Creek near Hinckley, NY

(Satellite)

OnedaCountyTourism
Originally constructed in the early 1900s to supply water to the Erie Canal, this scenic reservoir now serves multiple purposes — from outdoor recreation to drinking water supply and hydropower generation.

Street View, Oct 2013

DispatchesFromSamuelCenter
It is 3700' (1128m) long with a 400' (122m) spillway.

Keith Ferrante, Sep 2021

I could not find the capacity of this outlet conduit.

wktv

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Kevin Abbey: That was at 1229.82, which is approximately 4’ 9” (57”) over the damn 😳

Frank Guido: Just a few weeks ago there was some who had concerns that the Hinckley Reservoir was too low. What a difference a few weeks make.

Chad Rivers: There's normally 6 to 8 feet below the dam on the other side. I don't think I've seen it running over like this in decades.

The Jarvis powerhouse has a capacity of 9mw using two units, and it went online in 1991. [HydroReform]

Barge Canal Dry Dock in Lockport, NY

(Satellite)

There is a larger dry dock in Lyons, NY.

The dock for the canal cruise boats is in the background on the other side of the canal.

Street View, Jul 2011

Gil Eaton posted six photos with the comment:

Life along the Erie Canal...

     Lockport. Working on repairs to the trundle gate at the dry dock. 😎

[So what is a trundle gate?]

1

2

3

4

5

6

Mark Jones posted
Our machinist Dave working the Dewitt in Lockport drydock

Court Street Dam and Bridges on Genesee River in Rochester, NY

Dam: (Satellite)

Bridge: (Archived Bridge Hunter; Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges; Satellite)

Dam Bridge: (Historic Bridges)

Erie Canal overview

Looking upstream (South) at Court Street Bridge from Broad Street Bridge.

Street View, Jun 2025

View looking upstream at Court Street Dam and Bridge from Court Street Bridge. The I-490 Frederick Douglass-Susan B. Anthony Memorial Bridge is in the background.

Street View, Jun 2017

I wonder if the public can use this bridge over the dam.

HistoricBridges

Because the Genesee River intersects with the Barge Canal upstream from here, the dam controls the level of the canal. Thus the "canalErie" label on these notes.

3 of the 4 images posted by Jeff Miller with the comment:

I’m taking a walk around Rochester this afternoon, April 12, 2026.

     The Court Street Dam is keeping Rochester’s Barge Canal Inner Harbor from flooding over the embankments today; lots of water flow on the Genesee!

a, a screenshot from a video

b

c, cropped

Because the dam is just a little downstream of the I-490 bridge, all of the views I have seen of that bridge have about the same river level. Instead of the river level changing, the flow rate in the river changes.

HighSteel via Dennis DeBruler

The dam was built with a bunch of sluice gates.

Digitally Zoomed, 2x

By 1927, the sluice gates were replaced with sector gates.

Digitally Zoomed

Actually, the operation of these gates should be like bear trap gates in that values can be used instead of pumps. To raise a gate, valves on the upstream side of the chamber are opened. To lower the gate, valves on the downstream side of the chamber are opened.

Digitally Zoomed, 2x

In all of the views and photos I have looked at of the dam, they lowered the sector gates before they let the water flow over the fixed weir on the east side. So this photo of the sector gates being dry while the weirs are spilling water caught my eye. Looking closer, they are not using the sector gates because they are doing construction in the downstream river bed.

Ethan Corona, Dec 2019

I wish I could read the text.

Ethan Corona, Dec 2019

And this is what all of that spilled water is doing downstream at the former aqueduct.

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Barge Canal Lock #18 at Jacksonburg, NY

(Satellite)

Erie Canal Overview

Antonio Mandurano, Sep 2025

nycanalmap

It seems that the gates always leak.

Barb D (Barb D), Oct 2024

Frank Gillette posted
Bring in the big guns Little Falls

Frank Gillette posted
Lock 18 Repair 1993

1914 4.4mw + 1949 16mw Big Quinnesec/Hydraulic Falls Dam on Menominee River near Iron Mountain, MI

(Satellite)

Facebook Reel

First plant constructed: 1914

Maximum generation: 4,400 kilowatts

Second plant constructed: 1949

Maximum generation: 16,000 kilowatts

[we-energies]

"The Big Quinnesec Falls Hydroelectric Facility consists of a 92-Foot Head Powerhouse, a 61-Foot Head Powerhouse, four 12-foot diameter steel penstocks, and a dam that holds a 270-acre impoundment." [usgov]

All but one Parker gate is now open.

Jason Asselin - Videos, News & More posted, cropped
5 flood gates are now open on Big Quinnesec Falls Dam in East Kingsford, MI on the Menominee River! Watch the mist rise higher than this 83'

1893 Aban/Pennsy Duck Creek Bridge

(Archived Bridge Hunter; Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges; Satellite)

Mike Flickr, License: Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs (CC BY-ND)
Revenue abandonment
The railroad bridge at Caywood Road, Washington County, Ohio. In 1968 the Pennsylvania Railroad merged with long time rival New York Central forming the Penn Central Railroad Company. The merger went bankrupt and in 1976 Penn Central, along with several other struggling railroads, was purchased by the Consolidated Rail Corporation, in hopes to transform the troubled railroad system into a profitable business. The merger created an ever lasting impact to our area when thousands of miles of track was abandoned, including the Marietta Branch, due to what was considered low revenue. After the last train crossed this bridge on its way to Dover Ohio, in May 1976, just about every mile of the entire line was abandoned.

2021 Photo by Mike Tewkesbury via BridgeHunter

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1941 Morris Sheppard Dam and Possum Kingdom Lake on Brazos River

(Satellite)

brazos_inspection (source)
"BRA’s largest dam, at 2,700 feet [823m] long and 190 feet [58m] high, or about half a mile long and as tall as a 13-story building."

"The dam consists of nine crest "roof weir" [see more information below] type gates, each approximately 74 feet [22.6m] long and 13 feet [4m] high for the passage of floodwaters. Each gate passes approximately 9,600 cubic feet per second (cfs) of water when open. The Morris Sheppard dam was originally constructed with a hydro electric generating facility that is no longer in use." [brazos_reservoir]

brazos_dam
"At the time, the Morris Sheppard Dam was the tallest flat-slab buttress dam in the United States."

brazos_dam
It was built with two 11.25mw generators, but they quit working in 2007 when safety issues were identified that were deemed too expensive to fix. Decommissioning was not complete until 2014. They had to install a controlled outlet conduit within the dam structure to replace the flow through the removed penstocks.

This photo shows that the new controlled 78" conduit outlet in the lower corner of the powerhouse has a lot more capacity than the three controlled outlets in the body of the spillway. There is also a 42" conduit just this side of the 78" conduit.

brazos_dam

A Google search, after the AI did some "thinking," taught me that a "roof weir" is another name for a bear trap gate. I noticed that they are doing maintenance on two of the nine gates in the above photo. I zoomed in on the closer one. We can see the stop logs holding back the lake while the gate is disassembled. And one of the two leaves of the gate has been removed.

Digitally Zoomed

Has that second gate from the right been broken for over six years?

Santy Lay, Jun 2020

Since one of the gates is actually spilling, not just leaking, water, they have closed all of the outlet conduits.

Santy Lay, Sep 2020

The good news is that no power is needed to open and close a bear trap gate. The weight of the water operates the gates depending on which valves are opened. The bad news is that workers have to go out on the gates to release the locks. These are the only gates in the Brazos River Authority that are not controlled remotely.

brazos_dam
"These nine crest "roof weir" type gates are each about 74 feet [22.6m] long and 13 feet [4m] high. Depending on the streamflow and lake elevation, each gate can pass up to 9,600 cubic feet per second of water when open."

There is also an uncontrolled emergency spillway on the south side of the dam. So far, it has not been used.

Satellite

5:53 video @ 0:32 (source)

@ 3:31
Brazos River Authority Gate Operations
The three low-flow gates can release 100-150cfs per gate. The 78" and 42" conduit ring jet valves can release 3,000cfs. This source specifies 9,000cfs for each bear trap gate.
[This video erroneously attributes the invention of radial gates to Tainter in 1888 instead of to Patrick Thibado in 1880. [Dennis DeBruler]]

@ 4:03