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The wooden locks and infrastructure of the Welland Canal was in such poor condition by the mid-1830s that it needed to be replaced. The size of ships continued to grow, and the volume of traffic on the waterway was steadily increasing.
The St. Catharines Museum and Welland Canals Centre is helping us celebrate our 150th anniversary of being officially incorporated as a City with a weekly look back into our rich history from a diverse range of perspectives.
Reconstruction of the canal began in 1841. Since the Deep Cut, the Feeder Canal, and most of the channel had already been dug and enlarged since 1833, the work focused on building 27 new stone-cut locks, built of Queenston Limestone. Completed in 1845, with some work continuing to 1850, the new canal doubled the waterway’s capacity.
The above photo shows an aerial view of Lock 4, c. 1920 of the Second Welland Canal in downtown St. Catharines shows the intricate meandering of raceways feeding factories and mills such as McKinnon Motors, the large complex on the right-hand side of the photo. (8366-N)
Visit the St. Catharine Museum and Welland Canals Centre for a more in-depth look at the story of the Welland Canals.
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