Published: June 29, 2009 12:36 pm      

CANAL DISCOVERY: Lockport’s growth revisited

Lockport, like every port on the Erie Canal, enjoyed a remarkable growth in the 19th century that brought the community to a position of prominence as it entered the 20th century. During this same time, the Erie Canal began its own metamorphosis, as it underwent an unprecedented expansion to become the Barge Canal, with its greater dimensions and larger vessels. Lockport embraced this change and looked forward to even more growth. Shortly after 1910, the city fathers published a “Souvenir of Lockport,” that professed all of the amazing virtues of the city at that time. It makes for very interesting reading, today. An excerpt from the preface to the pamphlet is reprinted below.

“The town of smokeless power, the county seat of Niagara County, in the centre of the world's renowned fruit belt, which lies between Rochester and Buffalo, Lockport has a population of 25,000, an ideal location, and splendid transportation facilities, both by rail and water.

There are twenty-one religious organizations, and all have costly, comfortable church edifices. Lockport can well boast of its educational advantages; its public and parochial schools, with combined staff of 125 teachers; its three business colleges; its high school, the first union school in the State of New York; also its seven up-to-date newspapers, including three dailies: the Union-Sun, Review, and Journal, carrying Press Association telegraphic services.

Lockport also enjoys two trunk-line railroads, running east and west, connecting at Buffalo, 24 miles away, with its fourteen railway systems, running to all parts of the country. This beautiful city of ours also enjoys the Interurban Trolley lines to the beautiful and cooling summer resort, Olcott Beach, also connecting with Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Rochester, etc. Lockport enjoys every advantage of the Erie Barge Canal, which affords direct water route to Buffalo and New York. Movable bridges between Lockport and Buffalo give Lockport every advantage of a city situated on the Great Lakes. In this prosperous city of ours will be, in the near future, one of the most expensive dry-docks on the Barge Canal. The new lift-locks, to supplant the historic old hydraulic double tier of five locks, will be the latest and most costly in the country. A harbor on the western border of the city will furnish ample room for large fleets of vessels, and vertical walls within the city limits will provide ample water shipping facilities.

As a shipping center, Lockport is most centrally located, enjoying all the lowest obtainable freight rates to all points of the country; also the cheapest electric power in the United States, i.e., $16 per horsepower. Lockport has two hundred and twenty-five prosperous manufacturing industries, with a total output of the city factories of over ten million dollars.

The financial interests are served by two national banks and one savings bank, with aggregate resources of more than ten million dollars. The workingmen of this city are of a high average intelligence, and the city is remarkable for its freedom from labor troubles. The cost of living in this beautiful city of ours is as cheap as anywhere in the country, due entirely to the neighboring rich farming districts, diversified in agriculture and fruit-growing.

Lockport ranks among the four healthiest cities in the States. Located on a ridge, 330 feet above Lake Ontario, it has a natural drainage. Lakes Erie and Ontario modify the temperature in the winter, the thermometer rarely going below zero; in the summer, heat being tempered by fresh winds from north and southwest. This city has installed a water system from the Niagara River at a cost of six hundred thousand dollars, enjoying an unfailing supply of pure water from the Great Lakes.

The streets, lined with their double and quadruple rows of shade trees, are the pride of Lockport. There are fifteen miles of paved streets in this beautiful city. There are many desirable manufacturing sites along the Railroad and Barge Canal to be had at a very reasonable rate. Lockport is considered one of the most restful cities in the United States, being only twelve miles from Olcott Beach, on Lake Ontario, which can be reached by trolley. This is one of the most popular watering places in the State. In April 1910, the great Simonds Manufacturing Company, of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and Chicago, decided to consolidate their plants and move to Lockport.”

Doug Farley is director of the Erie Canal Discovery Center. Contact him at 434-7433. The Erie Canal Discovery Center has resumed normal summer hours and is now open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.