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Lock 18 of Enlarged Erie Canal
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West end of lock, 2008
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| Location: | Cohoes, NY |
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| Built: | 1837-1842[1] |
| Architect: | Holmes Hutchinson |
| Governing body: | City of Cohoes, private landowner |
| NRHP Reference#: | 71000526 |
| Added to NRHP: | 1971 |
Lock 18 of the Enlarged Erie Canal is located off North Mohawk Street in Cohoes, New York, United States. It is made of stone blocks 3 by 2 by 1.5 feet (90 by 50 by 40 cm) in size, roughly 150 feet (46 m) in length, laid in a random ashlar pattern. The lock's wooden gates are no longer extant.
The lock was built as part of an 1837-1842 plan to make the canal bed larger, heading off competition from railroads, and allowing a detour around the section of canal between Albany and Schenectady to the south, which had fewer locks and was difficult to navigate. Holmes Hutchinson, a canal engineer who later became chief of that department and a director of several railroads, surveyed the route and drew up the plans for all locks in the mid-1830s.[1] The canal was relocated slightly within the city of Cohoes; North Mohawk Street today parallels the original alignment, with sections of the original canal kept open to provide water power to nearby mill complexes along the Mohawk River.[2]
Ten of the locks from the Enlarged Erie Canal remain within Cohoes.[3] Lock 18 was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places, added in 1970 in recognition of the high quality of its remaining stonework; the remainder of the locks on city-owned land were added to the National Register in 2004 as a non-contiguous historic district. A city-owned trail along the former towpath allows visitors to see them. There is also a small parking lot along the street northeast of the lock with an interpretive sign.