The Earl Giles Collection – The Speeceville Lock

Earl took these photos of the Speeceville lock in May of 1970. I had to look up Speeceville and I found it just south of the confluence of the Juniata and Susquehanna rivers. It’s not even marked on the map, but it is about half way between Dauphin and Clark Ferry. It is where you see the word Pennsylvania along the river. You could zoom by on Rt 22 and never realize that it was there.

Historical Topographic Map Collection
Earl had made this copy of the lock. As you can see it is dated 1954.
In May 1970 the lock was is in fair condition.

I am not certain that this was the lock or if Earl was taking a photo of the rock wall. It is labeled as Speeceville.

I tried to find this lock on Google Maps but didn’t see it. However there is a fair amount of the old canal to be seen here are Speeceville along Towpath Road.

At Clark Ferry (or is it Clark’s) the Main Line canal crossed from the east to the west side of the river and crossed over (through?) Duncan Island then headed north up the west bank from there. The Juniata Division of the canal began at this point and continued to follow the Juniata River west. We have seen Earl’s photos from Amity Hall which is just upstream from this river confluence in prior posts.

Although the canal was abandoned and shown as a dashed blue line when this map was made, it does show the routes as they divided at the head of Duncan Island.

By the time Earl was taking photos the old covered bridge at Clark Ferry had been replaced, so the best he could do was to make copies. I am certain better copies can be found now days.

The Longest Covered Bridge in the World!

Looking west at the confluence of the two rivers. The bridge on the right crosses the Susquehanna and the bridge on the left crosses the Juniata. The Pennsylvania Main Line Canal can be seen in the foreground. Up bound boats would have crossed the Susquehanna River just upstream of here on the slackwater created by the dam and then headed north or west. The bit of land between the two bridges is Duncan Island.

If anyone knows if the old lock is still intact drop us a line.

2 thoughts on “The Earl Giles Collection – The Speeceville Lock”

  1. I am so loving this series of old, then and now photos. Thank you for continuing to release them. I study them closely, run to Google maps to find the location and study it more, and lose wonderful hours traveling along the great old Main Lain. Great stuff!

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