ZEBULON PIKE LOCK AND DAM

Zebulon Pike Lock and Dam (#11)

ZEBULON PIKE LOCK AND DAM. Major navigational improvement on the Upper MISSISSIPPI RIVER.

Construction of the locks ranks as one of the major construction projects ever attempted. Photo Courtesy: Bob Reding

Work on the lock and dam, named for famed explorer Zebulon Montgomery PIKE, began on February 2, 1934. The facility was first put into operation on September 10, 1937.

The eleventh of twenty-eight LOCKS and dams between St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, and St. Louis, Missouri, the locks cost $1,470,000 to construct. The dam, at 1,278 feet one of the largest on the river, helped maintain the nine-foot channel for river traffic.

Workers are hardly visible within the soon-to-be-completed lock. Photo Courtesy: Bob Reding

The total cost of the project came to $7,443,000 with as many as 950 workers employed at the site at one time. Although it was announced that as many as four deaths could be expected on a project of this size, only two workers were killed. Harold Arendt fell to his death, and Ardenal Thompson was fatally struck on the head by a stern-operated clam shovel. (Photo Courtesy: Daniel Callahan)