Published: November 05, 2009 11:25 pm         

Wabash and Erie Canal Lock park nearing reality

County gets $650 to finish project

TERRE HAUTE — A county park project that has been in the planning stages since 2002 will now become a reality as Vigo County officials learned Wednesday it has been awarded a $650,000 grant from the Indiana Department of Transportation.

The federal grant, issued to the state by the Federal Highway Administration, is based on an 80/20 split, which means the county will pay $150,000 to receive $500,000.

The award is from the Department of Transportation’s Crawsfordsville District, which had $940,000 in transportation enhancement grant funds to distribute. The district received project requests totaling more than $2.7 million from five public agencies.

“With this grant, we will have enough to finish the project and fund the construction,” said County Engineer Jerry Netherlain. The next move, Netherlain said, is for the county to complete a contract to hire Jeff Plunkett, president of Accidental Discoveries, a Noblesville archaeological consulting firm. Plunkett has degrees in anthropology from Purdue University and the University of Michigan.

The company would perform a “phase 2” archaeological study of the historic Wabash & Erie Canal Lock No. 47 near Riley.

“The project includes rehabilitation of the existing [canal] wall, plus constructing a replica wall, plus an interpretive center,” Netherlain said. “The project includes a parking lot. There will be a walking trail, and because of the site, which is low, there will be a small pedestrian bridge and an interpretive center that tells about the lock and has some older photos of it.”

Netherlain said the construction project would likely start by 2012.

“In between now and that time, we have to get the phase 2 archeological [as well as environmental] studies, then have our consultant finalize design plans and specifications and then we can get it bid,” the county engineer said.

The entire project would cost $1.2 million, said Ron Hinsenkamp, chief transportation planner for West Central Indiana Economic Development District.

The project has been long in coming. Vigo County in 2002 was awarded a $400,000 state grant, matched by $80,000 from the county, for the park.

“The transportation enhancement grants actually have eight different categories of eligible activities and one of those is historic preservation and rehabilitation of historic transportation facilities and structures and that is what this project falls under,” Hinsenkamp said.

The Wabash-Erie Canal was 468 miles long and was the second-longest canal in the world. It extended from Toledo, Ohio, to Evansville. It was built from 1832 to 1853. The canal was extended to Terre Haute, opening in October 1849. The canal later bankrupted the State of Indiana and was abandoned in 1874.

Lock No. 47 is one of only two surviving stone locks in Indiana; the second is in Lagro in Wabash County.

Vigo County in 2006 assumed ownership of a 10-acre site northeast of Riley through which the Wabash & Erie Canal passed 160 years ago. The county obtained the site from the Indiana Junior Historical Society Alumni Association Inc., which had owned the land for more than a decade.

A $40,000 “phase one” archeological study of the lock by Indiana State University was started in 2003; however, the county did not receive a written report from that study until early 2007.

The county has included funds for the project in a development plan from its Economic Development Income Tax. As with all federal grants, the county would be reimbursed for up to $500,000 on the project, Hinsenkamp said. The county had applied for the grant twice before being awarded funds on its third attempt, Hinsenkamp said.



Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com