Ford Dam, officially known as Lock and Dam No. 1, is on the

Upper Upper may refer to: * Shoe upper or ''vamp'', the part of a shoe on the top of the foot * Stimulant, drugs which induce temporary improvements in either mental or physical function or both * ''Upper'', the original film title for the 2013 found fo ...

Mississippi River and is located between Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota just north of the confluence of the Mississippi with the

Minnesota River The Minnesota River ( dak, Mnísota Wakpá) is a tributary of the Mississippi River, approximately 332 miles (534 km) long, in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It drains a watershed of in Minnesota and about in South Dakota and Iowa. It ris ...

at Mississippi River mile 847.9, in Minneapolis. The powerhouse portion was previously owned by the Ford Motor Company, which operated a

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...

power station to feed electricity to its Twin Cities Assembly Plant on the east side of the river. It was sold to Brookfield Power Co. in April 2008. The dual- lock facility and dam was built and is operated by the St. Paul district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Mississippi Valley Division.

History

The first facility at the site went into operation in 1917 and superseded the role of the earlier Lock and Dam No. 2 (today known as the

Meeker Island Lock and Dam The Meeker Island Lock and Dam (originally known as Lock and Dam No. 2) was the first lock and dam facility built on the Upper Mississippi River. Meeker Island was named after its owner Judge Bradley B. Meeker. Meeker County was named after him ...

). The facility was rebuilt in 1929, and an expansion from one lock to two locks was completed in 1932. Each lock is wide by long (17 × 122 meters), half the width of the next lock downstream, though this is the only dual-lock facility in the district. The lift is about . Major rehabilitation efforts were carried out between 1978 and 1983, including the replacement of many manual and hydraulic components with computer controls. The eastern portion of the site consists of an overflow Ambursen dam, which is a buttress dam where the upstream part is a relatively thin flat slab usually made of

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having hig ...

. The lift is . There is an inflatable flashboard system on top of the dam that can increase the lift by when so desired. The lock side of the facility has a large observation area that is open from April to November each year. A bridge allows visitors to walk over the two locks and right up next to the dam. The Corps built a base for a hydroelectric plant in the 1917 dam but Federal law required that the plant not be built by the government. Ford built the powerhouse, completed 1924, to power an assembly plant Ford also built on top of the bluff adjacent to the plant. The assembly plant closed in 2011 and the land is being redeveloped for residential and commercial uses. The powerhouse is long by wide and is built into the east end of the dam. It includes 4 turbines and generators with a total capacity of 17,920 kW using 7,000 cfs of water. It generates about 97,100 megawatthours (MWh) a year, supplies all the electricity to the assembly plant, plus free power to the lock and dam, and 22,000 MWh (22%) is sold to the local power grid. Now all the power goes to the grid (and lock and dam). When the facility opened, it assured a navigable channel up to the tail end of Saint Anthony Falls upriver in Minneapolis. Additional locks were added there in the 1960s, extending the

head of navigation The head of navigation is the farthest point above the mouth of a river that can be navigated by ships. Determining the head of navigation can be subjective on many streams, as the point may vary greatly with the size or the draft of the ship be ...

to a dam in Coon Rapids (without any lock), until their closure in 2015. Just upstream of the dam is the Ford Parkway Bridge. File:Lock and Dam number 1 with towboat.jpg, Towboat ''Patrick Gannaway'' taking a load of sand and gravel through Lock Number 1 File:Lock_and_dam_1.jpeg Ford Lock and Dam

Repair

In November 1958, extensive repairs to the dam began to correct serious leaking from one of the walls, which did not complete until the opening of river traffic in the spring of 1959. To prevent the underwashing of the entire structure, Ashbach Construction filled each wall crack and tunnel by Neoprin and concrete.

References

External links

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District: Lock and Dam 1
* {{Locks and dams of the Upper Mississippi River, before=

(former Lock and Dam No. 2, demolished), after= Lock and Dam No. 2 Transportation buildings and structures in Minneapolis Buildings and structures in Saint Paul, Minnesota Dams in Minnesota Historic American Engineering Record in Minnesota Mississippi Gorge Mississippi National River and Recreation Area Mississippi River locks United States Army Corps of Engineers dams Transport infrastructure completed in 1917 Buttress dams Dams on the Mississippi River Mississippi Valley Division 1917 establishments in Minnesota Locks of Minnesota Hydroelectric power plants in Minnesota

History

Repair

See also

References

Further reading

External links