Rare chance to share some history.

[JSinMO]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers allowed us the chance to tour the local lock and dam today I thought I’d share some pictures and I bit of the story.

Son looking in the lock chamber where the boats and barges are raised or lowered as they travel up or down river.

This is the dam in our town. It was built in the 1930s and is kinda small by modern standards. The lock chamber is 600 feet long, meaning the barges in a big tow must be separated and locked through in sections.

A view of the up river side of the gates. The position of these gate determines how much water is held back and therefore the depth of the river for navigation or flood control

Here’s the downriver side of the same gate.

We were allowed to go to the top of the dam a take a few pictures. It’s quite a view.

We were allowed to go to the top of the dam a take a few pictures. It’s quite a view.

Looking across the river into Illinois

Being able to share this with son was a rather special experience for me.
After my dad came home from the Army he spent the next 40 years as a civilian employee of the corps working on the dams as his day job. He worked his way up from lock man to lock master by the time he retired. He took me to work with him many times! Day, night, summer, winter it didn’t matter, he would come and ask if I wanted to go with him and I alway did! I’ve been on top of, inside, and under a few dams on the Mississippi! He would have never gotten away with bringing his kid with him these days!

Once I explained this to our guide she let us kinda do what we wanted and I told son some of the stories of being with his grandpa out “on the river”.

Here’s 3 generations standing in the middle of the river!

It’s a cold and windy day but we didn’t care, we both enjoyed it and it brought back a lot of memories for me and some fun stories to tell son!

[DavidBarkey]

Thats a cool day trip . There is a lot of work and brain power that went into building those . No computers to do all the number crunching .

[propane1]

Thanks Jeff for the great story and pictures.


Noel

[Chad]

Awesome Jeff, thanks for sharing. New memories being made, your dad would be happy!
And certainly a marvel of engineering, wow.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[Harry]

Thanks for taking us down memory lane with you Jeff. Harry

[Timj]

that's pretty cool Jeff, thanks for sharing.

[RoamingGnome]

Thanks for the photos and stories Jeff,
It's awesome that you are able to pass on stories of adventures with your Dad to your son...

[Eugen]

Great story and pictures Jeff, thanks for sharing!