Mule-Fueled Waterway

This granite basin is a canal lock, built around 1830 by black slaves, Irish immigrants, and Italian stone masons as part of the Kanawha Canal, the water highway that connected Richmond to the western part of Virginia. Two locks stand in this park, known as the Three Mile Locks because they lie three miles from the canal’s beginning at the Turning Basin, which was along Canal Street between 7th and 12th Streets where the James Center is today. With the right gates closed, a boat could enter from the left, the left gates would then close behind it, and water entering through small openings near the bottom called wicket gates would raise the water level until it matched the upper section, allowing the right gates to open and the boat to continue upstream; the process was reversed for downstream travel. Foot-deep niches in the lock walls held the gates when open, with curved ends where the gates swung on large wooden posts. Mules and horses pulled boats by heavy ropes along the towpath on the opposite side, and shallow grooves along the edge of the lock were worn into the rock by ropes holding boats in place as the water level changed.

Richmond, Virginia · United States