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A History of the Flight Locks

The building of a series of locks was the stroke of engineering genius that transformed the St. Lawrence River and the five Great Lakes into a  major shipping network. Beginning with the construction of five stone locks twenty-five miles upriver from Montreal in the late 1700's, the next major stride was the construction of a canal on the American side of Lake Erie in 1825. The resulting boom in trade and traffic soon made it possible for goods to be shipped from New York and Detroit and made major cities of such formerly small villages as Buffalo and Cleveland.

William Hamilton Merritt, an aggressive entrepreneur, saw an enormous opportunity and quickly organized the construction of a competing system on the Canadian side that would bypass Niagara Falls and connect to a series of linked canals leading to the open sea. Working with a charter from the Upper Canadian Legislature, Merritt began construction in 1824 and by 1829, the canal was complete, with 40 wooden locks, each 110 feet long and eight feet deep, enabling boats to circumvent the thundering waters of Niagara Falls.

From 1841 to 1845, further construction took place expanding the canal facilities while reducing the actual number of locks to 27, each 150 feet long. Between 1875 and 1887, a third canal was built, to accommodate vessels as long as 262 feet.

Our present eight lock canal system was begun in 1913 and took 19 year to complete. Port Weller, a man made harbour, became the Lake Ontario entrance to the canal, which now follows a virtually north-south route. The Seaway Locks, built in later years on the St. Lawrence River, were modeled oäΦ^e Welland Canal system.