Today we’re driving through Lockport, Illinois, flying the drone over the town and looking at some of its history. Watching ads helps me to continue with my channel. Thank you for supporting my work! – Christian
Lockport is a growing city of about 26000, 30 miles southwest of Chicago. The church I just showed you was actually founded seven years before Lockport was incorporated in 1853!
Early settlers discovered that the site on which they stood was actually 40 feet higher than nearby Joliet and that that would have good water power potential. Engineers soon arrived in the late 1830s and began building a canal that would connect Chicago to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico.
The city of Lockport was soon platted, owing its existence to the Des Plaines River and the Illinois and Michigan or I&M Canal. The I&M Canal ran 96 miles (154 km) from the Chicago River in Bridgeport, to the Illinois River at LaSalle. The canal helped establish Chicago as the transportation hub of the United States, before the railroad era.
The I&M Canal opened in 1848 and operated until 1900 when its function was partially replaced by the wider and deeper Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal ending grain barge traffic on the I&M Canal.
In 1911, the Texas Company, later known as Texaco, built a refinery in Lockport and began reviving the economy.
Soon commuter trains were built connecting Lockport to Joliet and Chicago. Today Lockport, Romeoville and Joilet are a large economic hub connected through roads and rails and still, in part, by the canals.
DJI Mini 2, Filmora 11.6.7, Epidemic Sound
Biddy Sullivan – “Fire and Bones”
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