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Lockington Locks

Lockington · Shelby County · Western Ohio

Stair-step locks of the Miami & Erie Canal, among the best preserved in Ohio

National Register of Historic PlacesBuckeye Trail: St. Marys Section

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Content last reviewed: September 2026 — this is when Field Notes Ohio's content was last checked, not a live status.
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Lockington Locks Historical Area
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A group of stone canal locks in a small canal village, restored and open free from dawn to dusk.

Built: Construction began in 1833; the locks opened for regular use in 1845
Locks: A stair-step group at the south end of the Loramie Summit; sources count four to seven
Rise: About 60 to 67 feet, across the Loramie Creek valley
Canal: The Miami & Erie Canal, which joined Cincinnati and the Ohio River to Toledo and Lake Erie
Listed: The National Register of Historic Places, December 17, 1969
Restoration: Lock 1 was restored in 2014 with a state transportation grant

The story

The Miami & Erie Canal opened for navigation in 1845 and connected the Ohio River at Cincinnati with Lake Erie at Toledo, carrying goods and giving Ohio waterpower for decades. At Lockington, a staircase of stone locks lifted boats about 60 to 67 feet up out of the Loramie Creek valley to the Loramie Summit, the 21-mile high stretch of canal that ran north to New Bremen. The village first took the name Locksport for its locks, and became a crossroads where the main canal met feeder canals from Port Jefferson and Sidney.

The canal did not last. The Miami Extension Canal was abandoned in 1877, the Lockington section stayed open for local travel until 1899, when the aqueduct broke, and the Great Flood of 1913 and years of neglect finished the job. The state handed the locks to the Ohio Historical Society in 1966, they were listed on the National Register in 1969 and partly restored, and Lock 1 was fully restored in 2014. Four locks are still visible, along with a dry-dock basin for repairing boats and the lockmaster's house, now a private home. The Buckeye Trail's St. Marys Section follows the old canal here, and two primitive backpacker campsites lie nearby in the Miami Conservancy District's Lockington Reservation.

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The Staircase That Lifted Canal Boats Over a Valley

Canal boats could not climb hills, so the engineers built stairs. At Lockington, a flight of stone locks raised the boats about sixty feet in a few hundred yards, and an aqueduct carried the canal over the creek.

The locks worked for half a century. Then the aqueduct broke, and the canal died in the mud of a flood.

Behind the legend

The dates of construction, opening, abandonment, the 1899 aqueduct failure, the 1913 flood, the 1966 transfer and the 2014 restoration are from Wikipedia, the Ohio History Connection and the Society of Architectural Historians. The number of locks is given as four, five, six or seven depending on the source, and the rise as 60 or 67 feet. Lockington's original name, Locksport, is on Wikipedia.

If you go

Walk down the flight of locks, see the dry dock and stop at the Lockington Reserve, a 200-acre Miami Conservancy District tract of floodplain forest and prairie next door.