The Des Plaines River drops 34 feet near Joliet. This sheer drop-off killed shipping. To solve the problem, engineers designed a massive concrete barrier between 1927 and 1933. It was a brutal build. Illinois ran out of money during the Great Depression, so the US Army Corps of Engineers had to take over. They constructed a 110-foot-wide lock. It worked. Barges loaded with coal and grain suddenly had a direct path from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.
The site looks different than most industrial dams. The builders cared about aesthetics. They used a classical-revival-meets-Art-Deco style for the control houses, complete with decorative concrete pilasters and symmetric window layouts. It looked sharp for 1933. Today, Brandon Road remains a critical chokepoint. Actually, it is now the main battleground against invasive Asian carp. The government is spending over a billion dollars here to install acoustic fish deterrents. Still, the original 1930s concrete structure does the heavy lifting.
What Makes Brandon Road Lock and Dam Historic District Special:
