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USACE St. Paul District Celebrates 150 Years of Service with Lock and Dam Open House

Published Sept. 16, 2016

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, is celebrating its 150th Anniversary this year by opening the doors at Lock and Dam 10 to the public.

The open house is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 24, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The lock is located at 5 Lock and Dam Lane, Guttenberg, Iowa, adjacent to the Lockmaster House Museum. The event is being held in conjunction with Guttenberg’s German Fest.

The Corps is opening its doors to the public to demonstrate how a lock works and supports inland waterways navigation. Lock and Dam 10 is one of 13 Mississippi River locks managed by the St. Paul District. In total, there are 29 locks on the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to St. Louis. The locks serve as a stairway for towboats moving commodities up and down the river. Members of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary will also be in attendance and have information on water and boating safety.

Due to security considerations, backpacks and larger bags are not allowed on the lock site, purses are acceptable. The open house is free. For accessibility questions or more information, please contact the Lock and Dam 10 staff at (651) 290-5949.

The St. Paul District is celebrating its sesquicentennial throughout 2016. The district marks Aug. 17, 1866, as its birthday. This is the day Maj. Gouverneur K. Warren, a West Point graduate widely acclaimed for his leadership at the Battle of Gettysburg, arrived in St. Paul, Minnesota, with orders to set up an engineering office. And since its creation, the district’s history has been entwined with the history of the region.

 The nearly 600 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, employees working at more than 40 sites in five upper-Midwest states serve the American public in the areas of environmental enhancement, navigation, flood damage reduction, water and wetlands regulation, recreation sites and disaster response. Through the Corps’ Fiscal Year 2015 $100 million budget, nearly 1,600 non-Corps jobs were added to the regional economy as well as $155 million to the national economy.