Lock No. 1, North New River Canal, Historical lock at North New River Canal in Davie, United States
Lock No. 1 is a navigational structure on the North New River Canal in Davie featuring thick concrete walls and wooden gates operated by a hand-crank mechanism. The installation forms part of Broward Memorial Lock Park and demonstrates the mechanical systems used to control water levels for boat passage.
Lock No. 1 opened in 1912 as the first lock in the South Florida canal system built under governor Napoleon B. Broward, designed by engineers S. Sewell and Ben Johnson and built by Furst-Clark Construction Company. It served the Everglades Drainage District, carrying lumber, farm equipment and people to Okeelanta and South Bay and returning produce to the coast. Shoaling and new roads and rail links closed it to boat traffic in 1926.
Boats using the lock carried lumber, farm equipment and people to interior communities such as Okeelanta and South Bay, then returned produce to the coast for shipment north by rail. The lock is now the centerpiece of Broward Memorial Lock Park, named for Napoleon B. Broward, who built the South Florida canal system.
The lock is located within Broward Memorial Lock Park along State Road 84 in Davie and is open for visits. The site is easily reached by car and offers parking, making it convenient for anyone interested in exploring the canal's engineering history.
The lock's gates were moved by a hand-driven rack-and-pinion mechanism, not hydraulics. Its six-foot-thick concrete walls survive, and in 1992 the South Florida Water Management District removed a flood control spillway that ran perpendicular to the old structure and built a modern concrete water control structure just west of the lock.
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