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| HAER ILL,60-GRACI,2- 1. VIEW OF LOCKS, LOOKING NORTHEAST Photocopy of photograph, ca. 1980, courtesy of U.S. Engineer Office, St. Louis, Missouri. Original print is on file at Mississippi River Lock and Dam No. 27 in Granite City, Illinois. - Upper Mississippi River 9-Foot Channel Project, Lock & Dam 27, Granite City, Madison County, IL Photos from Survey HAER IL-33 |
The locks are in the 8.4 mile Chain of Rocks Canal that helps bypass a 17-mile long rapids, and they provide an average lift of 15'. The lift can be as high as 20'. The upstream gates are lift gates whereas the downstream gates are the usual miter gates. The main chamber is 1,200' long and the auxiliary chamber is 600'. The dam is a "non-movable, low water" dam to maintain the low pool for L&D #26. This 1953 canal and locks project was the last improvement done to implement a 9' navigation channel on the Upper Mississippi River. As the southernmost L&D on the Mississippi River, it has the Missouri River traffic, as well as the Mississippi and Illinois River traffic, so it has the most traffic. [USACE, USACE-facts] The USACE also dug out a one mile long fleeting area just upstream of the locks. This created America's Central Port. [AmericasCentralPort] There is no visitors center.
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| Massman |
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| HAER ILL,60-GRACI,2- 2. OVERALL VIEW OF LOW-WATER DAM, LOOKING UPSTREAM. CHAIN OF ROCKS BRIDGE AND ST. LOUIS WATER DEPARTMENT INTAKE IN BACKGROUND, LOOKING NORTHWEST |
One of the four valves that controls the filling and emptying of a chamber.
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| HAER ILL,60-GRACI,2- 65. VIEW OF TAINTER VALVE FOR MONOLITH NUMBER 5-E WELDED OUTSIDE CULVERT. Photograph No. 9311. March 28, 1950 |
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| Massman [One of several photos of the miter gates being replaced.] |
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| Massman 2 [Massman also improved the protection cell.] |
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| USACE-facts |
Because this is the busiest L&D on the waterway, I record the activity. Note that it peaked around the turn of the millennia.
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| USACE |
Since fossil fuels are dying...
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| Chapter 12 (p32 has 2008 waterway funding figures) |
...building more locks does seem to be rather silly. Fixing what we have would be a better priority. The USACE has already spent $50m to develop a plan to add seven new 1,200' locks and extend five existing 600' locks. The claim that we need more lock capacity when the tonnage has been going down is another ding in the USACE's creditability. They should have used that money to repair what we have. Supposedly the expansion would cost just $2 billion. But the USACE paid more than that just to build the Olmsted Dam. By their own estimate, the economic return on the investment would be only 80 cents per dollar. And the cost overruns that seem to be inevitable with the USACE would make that investment only worse. This is the 21st Century so non-structural solutions to reduce delays such as scheduling the locks should be pursued. "The barge industry asserts that shipping by barge is significantly more fuel efficient than rail transportation and therefore less polluting. More complete analysis of transportation fuel efficiency demonstrates that this claim is incorrect because it ignores the use of highly efficient rail systems and does not take into consideration that barges travel more miles following the course of the river." The report recommends that the funds for lock expansions be dropped but the funds for river restoration in the plan such as buying 35,000 acres from willing landowners actually be funded. The date of this report was 2010. The plan to expand the locks may have been dropped because the Illinois Waterway was closed during the summer of 2020 for extensive repairs to multiple locks. The report was not only sponsored by tree and fish hugging organizations, but also by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
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| swenson [The 1,200' locks would replace the existing 600' locks.] |
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| swenson [I wish I knew my dams well enough that I could identify the location of this flood and move the photo to the correct set of notes.] |
Martin Landing posted three photos with the comment: "First time up at 27, the MV Miss Whitney from Louisiana. They are headed all the way to Minnesota."
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| Bucket Pehl commented on Martin's post I fixed their broken port side prop coupler bolts 5yrs ago at 14. The captian told me he was so southern french cajun that Noleans was "up north" to them. LOL |
Dec 29, 2024:
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| USACE, St. Louis District posted ATTENTION: The main 1200-foot lock chamber at Locks 27, located in Madison County, Ill., on the Chain of Rocks Canal will close January 1 through April 1, 2025, for lock wall embedded metal repairs. During this 60-day closure, the 600-foot auxiliary lock will remain open 24/7 to accommodate tows and boats passing through the dam. |
%20ATTENTION_%20The...%20-%20St.%20Louis%20District,%20U.S.%20Army%20Corps%20of%20Engineers%20_%20Fac.png) |
| Comments on the above post. [I had forgotten that at least part of the Illinois Waterway remains open during the Winter. The Upper Mississippi river does shutdown during the Winter. I presume they are busy in the Winter because of shipping grain.] |
Matt Chaney posted seven photos with the comment:
CHAIN OF ROCKS DAM AT ST. LOUIS, 1960sIn 1855 at St. Louis, "Steamer Cordelia was chewed to pieces by the sharp-toothed rock jaws of the Chain of Rocks Reach on the Mississippi River," stated an account. "Two sharp edges knifing into the river make the current swift and treacherous."Chain of Rocks at St. Louis, notorious limestone obstacle on the river, had wrecked boats and caused drownings since local rule of France and Spain.The U.S. Senate adopted a resolution, "calling on the Secretary of War to report upon the practicality and probable expense of improving the navigation of the Mississippi River at the point called Chain of Rocks." But change was generations away yet.Federal construction began in the 1930s, for a network of lock and dams on the Upper Mississippi, creating a staircase of navigable pools for commercial traffic from St. Louis to Minnesota.Ultimately, the Corps of Engineers built 29 lock and dams to maintain a channel depth of nine feet.In 1953, concrete Lock and Dam 27 opened at Alton. An eight-mile bypass canal avoided the Chain of Rocks hazard at North St. Louis. Later, a rock dam was riprapped atop jutting limestone south of Chain of Rocks Bridge, with a concrete anchor section extending 540 feet from the Illinois side."Rocks weighing two to six tons each are being eased into the Mississippi River ... to help form the base of the dam," the Post-Dispatch reported in July 1961. Current was so strong at the breaks, a "large rock will drift 12 feet when released in 14 feet of water," engineers said."The rocks are unloaded from barges in a predetermined sequence to obtain an interlocking effect between large and small stones. They are dabbed with various colors of paint to show crane operators the size and sequence for unloading.""When the 3,090-foot-long dam is completed next summer it will contain 250,000 tons of rock, ranging in size from six tons down to pebbles.""Purpose of the dam is to back up water to insure a minimum nine-foot depth at the Alton locks 12.5 miles upstream, where barges have had difficulty getting through in low water.""Electric signs costing $50,000 each are being erected above the Chain of Rocks Bridge and near the canal entrance to route [recreational] boat traffic away from the dam.""The dam will be the first permanent rock-fill structure across a major river in the United States," The PD reported. "Construction is being done by Frazier-Davis Construction Co. of St. Louis and Massman Construction Co. of Kansas City under a $2,943,043 contract.Click images for notes and credits.—30—Compiled by Matt Chaney, USA
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| 1 The Chain of Rocks dam catches flotsam on the Mississippi River at St. Louis, circa 1964. The St. Louis Waterworks occupies the Missouri shore, connected to an intake tower of the channel. The Chain of Rocks Amusement Park, closed in offseason, is visible atop the ridge on right. Inset of a photograph by Arthur Witman, copyrighted by the State Historical Society of Missouri, with digital image for non-commercial use. |
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| 2 Cranes place large stones on the fill dam at Chain of Rocks, North St. Louis, in 1961. The current was so strong, a rock weighing tons drifted 12 feet in 14 feet of water. "Purpose of the dam is to back up water to insure a minimum nine-foot depth at the Alton locks 12.5 miles upstream, where barges have had difficulty getting through in low water," reported the Post-Dispatch. Photograph by The PD, with digital scan for non-commercial use. |
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| 3 Rapids of the riprap dam at Chain of Rocks, 1966, on the Mississippi River at North St. Louis. Photograph by the the Post-Dispatch, with digital scan for non-commercial use. |
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| 4 Chain of Rocks Amusement Park and bridge in North St. Louis, 1960, prior to construction of a rock dam near the intake towers on the Mississippi River. Photograph by John Frost McDonald for a postcard, with digital image for non-commercial use. |
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| 5 Intake towers of St. Louis Waterworks at Chain of Rocks, 1968, viewing southward along the Mississippi River. Photograph by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, with digital scan for non-commercial use. |
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| 6 Large sign warns recreational boaters to avoid the riprap dam at Chain of Rocks on the Mississippi River, North St. Louis, in July 1961. Digital scan of a photograph by the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. |
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| 7 Map of the Mississippi River at North St. Louis, 1948, depicting planned construction of Lock and Dam 27 with a bypass canal, on right. A rock dam would be laid across the river at Chain of Rocks, area highlighted, in the early 1960s. Artist's rendering by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, with digital scan for non-commercial use. |
