Lockport
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| Room with a view, houses overlooking the locks, Lockport, New York (Fuji X-E1 digital file) |
Lockport is the county seat of Niagara County in northern New York. It is known for the fascinating locks which lift (or lower) boats and barges on the Erie Canal. According to
Wikipedia,
The canal reached Lockport in 1824, but the Flight of Five Locks were not completed until 1825. By 1829, Lockport was an established village. The community was centered on the locks, and consisted mainly of immigrant Scottish and Irish canal workers brought in as labor. The workers remained in Lockport after the completion of the locks, giving the city a heavy Celtic influence still discernible today, especially in the Lowertown and North Lockport neighborhoods.
The city of Lockport was incorporated in 1865.
The Erie Canal was supplanted by the larger New York State Barge Canal in 1918, and the famous south "flight of five" locks was replaced by two much larger locks E34 and E35. The north "flight of five" lock chambers still remains as a spill way.
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| Lock 35, Lockport, NY, with full capacity |
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| View from gate at Lock 35 looking down to Lock 34 |
The photograph above is complicated. In the foreground is one of the gates that keeps the water in the pool at Lock 35. Looking down, you see the lower lock then beyond, the Erie Canal.
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| 1839 engraving of Lockport by William Henry Bartlett (1809 – 1854), from Wikipedia |
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| Erie Canal view upriver towards Locks 34 and 35 (left) and former locks (right) |
The bike trail took us steeply downhill past the locks.
One of Lockport's most infamous former residents was Timothy McVeigh, the convicted terrorist responsible for Oklahoma City Bombing.
Medina
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| Main Street, Medina, NY |
The Village of Medina is a charming little place where we stayed at the end of our 1st day of biking the Erie Canal tour. The previous night in Buffalo was rather interrupted and unrestful, so Medina looked like it would be a peaceful stopover. The bike group set up tents at the Clifford H. Wise Middle School, which had very nice grounds.
The buildings along the Main Street Historic District consisted of brick or Medina Sandstone commercial structures in excellent repair. Look at the craftsmanship in the arches over the windows.
The side streets, such as Gwinn St. in the photographs above, were lined with early 20th century wood frame houses and cottages. This is small-town Americana at its best. Will our McMansion ghettos age as well as these neighborhoods after a hundred years?
The
Medina Railroad Museum is on Gwinn Street. We arrived in town too late to enter the depot, but I read that it contains one of the largest model railroad layouts in the country. That would have been fun.
Dear Readers, this ends my short set of memories of my 2018
Cycle the Erie Canal tour. It was a lot of fun, the other cyclists were very nice, and I lost weight. Maybe try again in 2021? Will we have figured out the virus by then? We can only hope....
The side streets, such as Gwinn St. in the photographs above, were lined with early 20th century wood frame houses and cottages. This is small-town Americana at its best. Will our McMansion ghettos age as well as these neighborhoods after a hundred years?
The Medina Railroad Museum is on Gwinn Street. We arrived in town too late to enter the depot, but I read that it contains one of the largest model railroad layouts in the country. That would have been fun.
