ODNR to Present Lock Demonstration

McCONNELSVILLE, Ohio – The Village of McConnelsville holds the Morgan County Heritage Days festival every October.

McConnelsville is home to Muskingum River Lock 7, which is operated by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. This year, they are inviting the public to witness how the lock system allows watercraft to navigate around the dam, as part of the festival festival. 

“Morgan County Heritage Day will be on October 18th, this year,” Muskingum River State Park Manager Ron Mingus said. “And from 12-to-4, we will be giving pontoon rides through the lock, as part of Heritage Day. We’ll bring people in. They can get on a pontoon. We’ll take them through the lock and show them how it works, both up and down river. And if you don’t want to go through the boat, that’s fine. We’ll have people on land here too, that can talk them through and show them how everything works, where the water comes out and just give them a step-by-step tutorial.” 

The Muskingum River has 9 of its 11 original locks still in operation. They once served as the primary transportation system throughout the valley and helped to establish the many communities that are built around them.

“To the best of our knowledge, we are one-of-two lock and dam systems in the United States that is still operating by hand, as they were intended. This system was built in 1841 and we are the oldest of the two systems remaining. The other being the Fox River in Wisconsin,” Mingus said.

Although commercial transportation has pretty much ceased along the Muskingum, today the locks serve by shuttling all sorts of recreational vessels, from kayaks and canoes, to sternwheelers and houseboats.