Brandon Road Lock – Illinois Waterway

In the first two decades of the 20th century, the Sanitary and Ship Canal and the Cal-Sag Channel made some deep water shipping possible in the region, but the terminus was Joliet.

Predictable deep water down stream from Joliet on the Des Plaines and Illinois Rivers were unreliable, so, in 1919, the Illinois General Assembly passed legislation to authorize the construction and development of the Illinois Waterway, a project designed to provide a navigation channel between Lockport and Utica.

The construction of the modern Illinois Waterway was started by the State of Illinois in 1920. By 1930, about 2/3 of the work was completed, and the entire project was turned over to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who resumed construction and opened the waterway on June 22, 1933.

During the second phase, 1922-1933, the Ohio River Standard Navigation lock, control station and other auxiliary structures were constructed as part of the building of the Illinois Waterway. The state of Illinois designed the new Ohio River Standard Navigation lock, measuring 110-feet-wide-by-600-feet-long with a 41-foot lift, which was the largest in the United States at the time. The then photograph, taken in 1932, shows the Brandon Road Lock under construction on the Des Plaines River, just south of Joliet near Rockdale. Construction workers, who are posing for the camera, are working on one side of the lock chamber doors.

On the modern Illinois Waterway, eight dams hold back water to form eight “pools” very similar to long, narrow lakes. These dams raise the water level enough to accommodate the large tows that require nine feet of water to operate. This arrangement creates a “stairway of water” that drops 163 feet from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River.

The now photograph shows an inside view of the lock chamber and doors looking East.