Lock and Lockhouse 75 at Mile 175.7 on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath

Lock and Lockhouse 75 are located at Mile 175.7 on the C&O Canal towpath. A parking lot is near the site. See the Locks and Lockhouses web page for an interactive location map.

Lock 75 is the last lock on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, though it is not the 75th lock—there are only 74. The anomaly in the numbering system stems from the construction of the locks downstream from the Paw Paw Tunnel. Engineers originally planned to build four but needed only three. Since the locks had already been numbered, instead of redoing the entire system they just skipped over the name Lock 65.

Downstream view of Lock 75 at Mile 175.7 on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath

Along with the lock itself stands Lockhouse 75. A lockhouse is the residence of the man who is hired to operate the lock. In addition to a yearly salary, he and his family—almost all lockkeepers were family men—lived in the company provided lockhouse and had use of an acre of land for farming. Those who tended multiple locks got extra money per lock, up to two. The locks had to be very close together for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company to assign multiple locks to one person

Operating the lock was a year-round, 24-hour-a-day job. When a canal boat approached, the captain would blow a horn to notify the lockkeeper. If it were nighttime, somebody had to wake up and go to work. Of course that’s the benefit of being a family man—your kids had to get up for the late night and early morning arrivals!

Lockhouse 75 is one of the few existing houses along the canal that is made of wood. In fact, it was eaten by beetles, so what you see today is a 1978 reconstruction on the original foundation. It was difficult to get quality stone at the far end of the canal near Cumberland, Maryland, so what stone did arrive was used for the locks, and the lockhouses were built of wood. As you travel downstream you will see the transition from wood houses to stone houses.