November 20, 2024
Local News

Then & Now: Lateral Canal – Ottawa

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The Then photograph, shows the Lateral Canal Lock at Superior Street looking north toward the I&M Canal. The towpath bridge can be seen in the background, and the locktender’s shack is to the right, just beyond the north gate. (Photo courtesy)

In Ottawa, an important feeder channel for the Illinois and Michigan Canal was located north of the main canal. The canal was about 4.7 miles long and about 50 feet wide through the town, and many mills and grain elevators were located along its route. The location where the feeder joined the main canal, known as the Lateral Canal, ran south through town and emptied into the Hydraulic Basin. The basin moved the water east for several blocks then through a narrow mill race before spilling into the Fox River.

This canal was used to regulate water levels in the I&M Canal in addition to providing hydraulic power by many businesses along its short route. The Lateral Canal, sometimes referred to as the “sidecut,” was supplied with water by the Fox River feeder canal located north of the Fox River Dam in Dayton.

The Lateral Canal cut through the I&M Canal towpath north of Superior Street, dropped elevation through a limestone lock, and ran south along the east side of Canal Street where it entered the Hydraulic Basin. The basin was oriented east-west along the south side of Mill Street and flowed east to LaSalle Street where it narrowed into a raceway, which controlled the water as it flowed into the Fox River.

In 1931, teams of unemployed men from the area began to dismantle the Lateral Canal, its Superior Street Lock, and fill in sections from the Main Canal near Superior Street south to Main Street. In short order, the Hydraulic Basin also was filled in between LaSalle and Clinton streets and Mill Street; between LaSalle and Columbus streets, it was widened and paved over.

Although nothing remains of the original feeder canal, there still is some evidence of the original route in the topography of the area. The nearly 5-mile-long feeder began just north of Dayton and ran south along the west bank of the Fox River, eventually following Lyman’s Mound Road, North 2959th Road, and then paralleling the Burlington Railroad route and then curving south and joining the main channel of the canal.