The Locks and Canals Historic District includes all of Lowell’s 5.6 mile canal system, associated dams, locks, gatehouses, millyards, and corporation boardinghouses. The canal system is the largest in the country, perhaps the most historically significant, and was critical to the establishment of the Lowell National Historical Park in 1978. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, the district was also listed as a National Historic Landmark in 1977, the Nation’s highest level of historic designation.
In addition, the canal system was listed as a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1984 and a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1985 by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
