(WXYZ) — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this month is working to maintain the Poe Lock at the Soo Locks, and new photos show inside the largest lock while it was empty.
In a post on Facebook, the Corps said the last freighter of the 2019 season came through the Poe Lock on Jan. 15, and crews began to dewater the lock for a busy maintenance season.
According to the Army, the Poe Lock was completed in 1968 and is 1,200 feet long, 110 feet wide and 32 feet deep.
"The Poe Lock holds back a head of 21.5 feet (the difference between normal upper pool and normal lower pool). The reinforced concrete floor and monolithic concrete walls are constructed on a sandstone bedrock foundation," the Army said on its website. "The monolithic walls each contain a service gallery and a filling/emptying culvert. The gates are steel, miter type with direct connect hydraulic cylinder operation."
It's the only lock capable of locking the massive 1,000-foot freighters, ad was constructed at the site of an earlier Poe Lock, completed in 1896, and the old State Lock.
Check out the photos below.
