This photograph was captioned "View Southwest, Menasha Lock." From the 1995 Historic American Engineering Record, as documented in the Library of Congress.
On the Lower Fox, in the course of almost 40 miles, the river drops approximately 170 feet—almost the height of Niagara Falls. Harnessing this waterway with all the locks made the river navigable in an era when roads were largely dirt, or plank, at best.
The Menasha lock is an example of a pound lock which is a type of lock that is used almost exclusively nowadays on canals and rivers. A pound lock has a chamber (the pound, also known as a reach or a level) with gates at both ends that control the level of water in the pound.
photo courtesy: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS [or HAER or HALS], Reproduction number HAER WIS,70-MENA,3--5
I used to fish on the river side, mill side, of this lock when I was a kid.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if that area is still accessible for fishing....