Dam. That's Not a Bridge?

Mighty floods sweep down the Mohawk almost every spring, and although the builders of the original Erie Canal placed their artificial waterway well above flood levels, Barge Canal engineers who dredged river channels and replaced stone and timber with steel and concrete still had to plan for the river’s power. Locks and dams turn river levels into stair-steps, and eight distinctive moveable dam structures between Schenectady and Fort Plain were designed to pass high water. Though they look like bridges, only two carry roadways. Their trusses support a system of gates and uprights that are lowered into the river in summer to form navigable pools, then pulled out in winter to clear the way for ice and debris-filled floodwaters.

Root, New York · United States