Lockport's Lock Tenders Tribute Monument

Generations ago, twelve men, one little girl, and a photographer gathered near the Erie Canal junction in Lockport, New York. It was a sunny day in 1897 and history was about to be made. The group had assembled for a photograph, which was taken on an old-fashioned box camera and later printed in the Lockport Union-Sun & Journal.

In the photograph, twelve lock tenders sit near the canal on a stairway between Locks 34-35 and the famous Flight of Five Locks. A young girl sits near them, wearing a dress and hat adorned with flowers. Over a century later, this photograph has become the inspiration for the Lock Tenders Tribute Monument.

Installed in three phases, the completed monument recreates the people in the iconic photograph and the photographer who took it. The life-size bronze figures are the work of sculptor Susan Geissler from Youngstown. She used a process known as lost-wax casting to create the incredible, 275-pound sculptures.

The monument is located on the same, newly repaired stairway in which the photograph was taken. Here, the canal walls are twelve feet thick, and it takes three million gallons of water to fill the locks and raise boats 50 feet.

In 1897 when the photograph was taken, over 100 prospective lock tenders stood on the Pine Street bridge for the annual selection process. Back then, lock tenders were chosen from each of the eight wards in the city. It was just minutes before starting time. From the bridge, the assembled crowd was “said to be ‘looking down upon the locks’” and desperately hoping to be chosen for the twenty-person workforce.

Each year, lock tenders worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week, from April through November. They “were responsible for opening and closing the locks, ensuring boats passed through safely, and keeping up with maintenance.” Their job was difficult and backbreaking.

F.B. Clench took the iconic photograph. He was a distinguished portrait photographer who owned his own studio on Main Street in Lockport. For twenty years, his work was in high demand throughout Western New York. 

Except for one lock tender, all the people in the photograph have been identified. 

The Lockport Locks Heritage District is a major tourist attraction in Niagara County, featuring the Erie Canal Discovery Center, the Locks District Museum, the Flight of Five Lock Tender Tour, and much more. On the tour, visitors get “the opportunity to become lock tenders for a day--to push [the] balance beams that open and close [the] 5-ton wooden lock gates and [the] restored locks.” Fittingly, the Lock Tenders Tribute Monument is an incredibly popular spot for selfies.

The Lock Tenders Tribute Monument is considered the largest bronze monument in the history of Western New York.

Hope L. Russell, Ph.D.