Exhibit: Cascade Locks Park, Akron

Text By: Jack Geick
Design By: Gregory Wilson, University of Akron

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Looking south upstream from Lock 12 in the Cascade Locks. The wooden gates at the ends of the locks were washed out during the 1913 flood.

Akron’s Cascade Locks are a unique artifact left over from Ohio’s canal era—an era that began in 1825, and ended in 1913 in a catastrophic flood. They are the remains of a steep staircase of seven locks on the Ohio & Erie Canal that permitted canal boats to ascend 70 feet in less than half a mile to reach the Akron Summit—the highest point in on a canal more than three hundred miles long. The Cascade Locks were part of the canal system that transformed Ohio from a primitive wilderness into the third most populous state in the union. Continue reading Exhibit: Cascade Locks Park, Akron