Power Canal Bulkhead You are Here - Roanoke Rapids, NC - 'You Are Here' Maps on Waymarking.com

Notice the 'you are here' superimposed over a picture of what the are once looked like.

The Great Falls Water Power Manufacturing and Improvement Company - later known as the Roanoke Rapids Power Company - built this bulkhead during the 1890's as part of their new power canal. This placed them in direct competition with the Navigation Canal Investors who were converting their adjacent but older canal into a water power source at the same time. By 1900, both canals were competing to sell power to the growing manufacturing communities nearby.

This structure, along with a series of dams and spillways built between a chain of small islands, created a reservoir from which the power canal received its water. Large gates controlled the flow, and excess water was returned to the river via a spillway located to the north. This cnal provided power until the mid-1950's when it was replaced by the modern hydroelectric dam less than a half-mile upstream. Since then, water has not flowed in either canal.

Location Name: Roanoke Canal Power Bulkhead

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Date Logged Log   01/10/2008 goldmanford visited it

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