I&M Canal: Boat Yard in Lockport

1885

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As described already, the canal was 120' wide through Lockport, IL. If you take the trail south of where the Wabash Symerton Depot has been preserved, you will walk through a very non-urban area. The underbrush has been cut because this is the weekend of their annual Canal Days.

Beside the trail is this marker of where the above pictured boat yard used to be.

The canal was dug through dolostone from Lemont to Romeoville, so it was practically waste material. That is why utilitarian structures such as embankments and abutments, as well as churches and other impressive town building,s were built with it. Here we see that during heavy flows, the water is eating away at the embankment. I need to walk this trail again and try to investigate the smokestacks that I now see in the background.