Team studies Whitewater Canal

4 from Ball State research passageway, sites at Metamora in preservation

project.

Associated Press, Thursday, June 17, 2004

METAMORA, Ind. -- Using a tape measure, a camera and copious notes, four

Ball State University graduate students are preserving a part of the

history of Whitewater Canal, a 19th century passageway near the eastern

border of Indiana.

Their research will go into a report about the canal, which once

stretched 76 miles from Hagerstown to Lawrenceburg, and about Gordon's

Lock and White Rose Mill at Metamora, about 60 miles southeast of

Indianapolis.

"We're taking measured drawings of exactly how the structure is today

so in the future you can compare it to see how it's changed over time,"

project coordinator Susan Lankford said.

The students' report is being produced through the Ball State Center

for Historic Preservation and with a grant from the Indiana Division of

Historic Preservation and Archaeology. The canal, on which construction

began in 1836 and ended in 1847, was declared a state historic site by

the Indiana Department of Natural Resources in 1947.

Its 56 locks were built to accommodate drops in elevation in the

canal's course. When a boat moved into each lock, the water was raised

or lowered to provide the boat smooth passage to the next part of the

canal.

Among the things the students are assessing at Gordon's Lock are the

conditions of its stone, mortar and wooden gates. They found that a

beaver has chewed away the lock's western gate, that the gates have some

cracks and leaks, and that vegetation is growing from them.

"That's not surprising," student Kent Abraham said. "If you realize the

history of it, these canals were in constant need of maintenance. It's

amazing it's even here."

The canal began deteriorating after the Whitewater Valley Railroad Co.

bought it in 1866 and put its tracks on top of the canal's towpath. In

the 1930s, the train route was discontinued, and the new U.S. 52

bypassed Metamora, now a town of about 1,500 people.

The students began their research May 17. They have scoured government

archives, Indiana State Historical Society files, Franklin County

Courthouse records and other sources, seeking deeds, mortgage records,

photographs, newspapers and even telephone books.

On Monday, the students examined the old mill, noting each detail in

their report.

"It's going really well," Lankford said. "We're getting it done quicker

than we anticipated."

She said the students plan to have a rough draft of the report by July

10 and to have it completed by the fall.