Willamette Falls Locks - West Linn, Oregon
N 45° 21.420 W 122° 36.875
10T E 530187 N 5022682
These locks are the oldest continuously-operated multi-chambered locks in the USA.
Waymark Code: WM4MZJ
Location: Oregon, United States
Date Posted: 09/08/2008
Views: 10
The locks have been 'mothballed' by the Corps of Engineers due to a lack of funding. Sadly this means that boats are no longer locking through and the lock museum is closed. There is a movement by the community to bring the locks back to life. The Willamette Falls Heritage Foundation sponsors a ‘Lockfest’ annually to publicize the plight of the locks - (
visit link)
The Foundation also has the best history of the locks found online - (
visit link)
Visiting the locks is still possible, but there is a dearth of directional signs and the entrance is a bit intimidating due to the fact that it is also the entrance to the West Linn Paper Company. In order to access the locks it is necessary to park your car in the upper lot, located about 500 feet behind the West Linn Police Department Building. The entrance is at these coordinates – 45° 21.532’ and 122° 36.754’. From the entrance you walk down an interesting paved pathway down to the locks. There is a picnic grove, but close by is the paper mill and it is rather noisy.
From a historical marker on the Interstate Highway 205 overlook at 45° 21.098' and 122° 37.592' - Willamette Falls Locks were opened on New Years Day 1873, when the steamer 'Maria Wilkins' became the fist vessel to navigate up the west end of Willamette Falls. Farming and shipping interests had long sought to eliminate expensive portages around the age-old bar to navigation 26 miles above the mouth of the river. The initial project was completed by the Willamette Falls Canal and Locks Company with a partial state subsidy at a cost of $450,000. Five locks - including a canal basin and a guard lock at the upper end provide a total lift of 50.2 feet. Carved from native rock and finished with masonry; the locks have concrete sills and are lined with timbers.
From signs erected at the picnic grove adjacent to the locks - 'History in the Making' - Willamette Falls Locks opened on January 1, 1873. Over the years, this lock has passed millions of tons of cargo, thousands of people, and the Spruce Goose. The lock survived floods in the late 1800's, 1927, 1948, 1964, the 1970's and 1996. (Look around you for water marks from the flood of 1996.) The world around the locks has changed immensely, but the lock is still doing its original job. Over the years, renovations have been made. The lock operators don't open the gates by hand anymore, but the spirit and drive of the people who initially dreamed of making a 40-foot fluid staircase around the Willamette Falls still lives.
'Rock Solid' - Lock chambers 1 and 2 were cut into solid rock, but chambers 3 and 4 and the guard lock had to have stone masonry placed in them. On October 11, 1872, the 'Oregon Weekly Enterprise' reported on the lock construction as follows: "Your committee cannot speak in too great praise of the stone work of the locks, as it is of a very heavy and durable character: being built of very large stones, mostly brought from a quarry on Clackamas River some ten miles from the canal, though some small portion of the stone work has been made from a quarry at the lower end of the canal." 'The masonry work is all first class, the cement of the best quality; to prove which, Mr. Lesourd (a lock representative) endeavored with a hammer, to drive an 8d nail between two stones, but failed."