Mississippi River Lock & Dam No. 13

Lock and Dam No. 13 is a lock and dam located on the Upper Mississippi River above Fulton, Illinois and Clinton, Iowa, United States. This facility offers visitors a view of the barges and boats locking through on the widest pool in the Upper Mississippi River.

The movable portion of the dam is 1,066 feet (324.9 m) long and consists of ten tainter gates and three roller gates. The non-movable portion of the dam continues toward the Iowa shore with a 200 feet (61.0 m) storage yard, a 728 feet (221.9 m) non-submersible dike, a 1,650 feet (502.9 m) submersible dike, and a 1,315 feet (400.8 m) non-submersible dike with two 90 feet (27.4 m) transitional sections between the submersible and non-submersible sections. There is also an 8,940 feet (2,724.9 m) non-submersible dike on the Illinois side east of the locks. The main lock is 110 feet (33.5 m) wide by 600 feet (182.9 m) long and like most other sites in the project, it has a smaller, unfinished, auxiliary lock. In 2004, the facility was listed in the National Register of Historic Places as Lock and Dam No. 13 Historic District, #04000173 covering 2,542 acres (10.3 km²), 1 building, 6 structures, and 4 objects.

This lock and dam represent the man-made exit from the Driftless Area, where shipping has to travel a few feet above bedrock over the 9-foot (2.7 m) shipping channel. It's about 522 feet (159 m) above sea level.

Text imported from Wikipedia article "Lock and Dam No. 13" and modified on July 23, 2019 according to the CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license.