Lockington

How Lockington began

Lockington is a small village on Loramie Creek, built around a flour mill of about 1830 and named for the flight of Miami and Erie Canal locks completed there in the 1840s; it was first called Locksport. It was surveyed and platted in 1837 for landowner David Mellinger and incorporated in 1857-58. The canal's Lockington Locks raised boats about 60-67 feet over the Loramie Summit and are among the best-preserved lock walls on the old canal. After the catastrophic Flood of 1913 ended commercial use of the canal, the Miami Conservancy District built the earthen Lockington Dam just outside the village (1918-1921) as one of five flood-control dams protecting the Great Miami River valley.

Settled c. 1830, platted 1837, incorporated 1857-1858, by David Mellinger (landowner); surveyed and platted by Jonathan Counts.

Where the name comes from

The community was originally called Locksport for its position by the Miami and Erie Canal locks; the name shortened to Lockington.

Before the town

No Native American site, village, or trail specific to Lockington itself is recorded in the sources checked. Loramie Creek, on which the village stands, is named for Pierre-Louis (Peter) Loramie, a French-Canadian trader whose trading post on the creek several miles away served as a Shawnee staging area against American forces during the Revolutionary War until Kentucky militia under Benjamin Logan destroyed it in November 1782; the site later became a boundary point named in the 1795 Treaty of Greenville and the 1817 Treaty of Fort Meigs.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

• Loramie's trading post (Fort Loramie) (other) — Loramie Creek, several miles from Lockington, 1769-1782 (en.wikipedia.org)

Timeline

1. c. 1830 — A flour mill was built on Loramie Creek near the future village site.
2. 1833 — Construction began on the Lockington Locks, the flight of locks that carried the Miami and Erie Canal over Loramie Creek.
3. 1837 — David Mellinger hired Jonathan Counts to survey and plat the village on his land; John Brown also owned the sawmill and flour mill that year and built a new wool mill.
4. 1845 — The Lockington Locks opened for regular use, part of the completed Miami and Erie Canal between Cincinnati and Toledo.
5. 1847 — A post office opened at Lockington on June 28.
6. 1857 — Shelby County commissioners approved Lockington's incorporation on September 9; the Ohio Secretary of State recorded it January 4, 1858, and W.S. Burns was elected the village's first mayor on April 1, 1858.
7. 1913 — The Great Flood of 1913, Ohio's worst natural disaster, ended commercial navigation on the Miami and Erie Canal.
8. 1914 — Lockington's post office closed on August 30.
9. 1918 — Construction began on the earthen Lockington Dam across Loramie Creek south of the village, one of five Miami Conservancy District flood-control dams built after the 1913 flood.
10. 1921 — Lockington Dam was completed in October: a 69-foot-high, 6,400-foot earthen embankment that can store 70,000 acre-feet of water up to its spillway.
11. 1969 — The Lockington Locks Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Stories

The locks that gave the village its name

Lockington sits at the Loramie Summit, the highest point on the Miami and Erie Canal between Cincinnati and Toledo, and getting canal boats over it took a stair-step flight of locks that lifted the water roughly 60 to 67 feet. Construction started in 1833 and the locks opened for regular use in 1845, once the full 274-mile canal was finished. Boats and water alike depended on the Lewistown Reservoir feeder line that fed the summit level. The engineering earned the community its first name, Locksport, later shortened to Lockington; the stone lock walls survive today as some of the best-preserved on the old canal system and were listed on the National Register in 1969.

After the canal, a dam against the next flood

The canal era at Lockington ended with the Great Flood of 1913, still considered Ohio's worst natural disaster, which wrecked the Miami and Erie Canal beyond commercial repair. Communities up and down the Great Miami River valley raised money afterward to hire an engineer and design a permanent flood-control system, which became the Miami Conservancy District. As part of that system, an earthen dam was built across Loramie Creek just south of Lockington between February 1918 and October 1921: 69 feet high, 6,400 feet long, able to store 70,000 acre-feet of water up to its spillway during a flood and releasing it gradually afterward through two concrete conduits. The dam has stood dry most of the time since, doing its work only when the creek rises.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · villageoflockington.com · ohiohistory.org · mcdwater.org · greatmiamiriverway.com · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · en.wikipedia.org

Piqua draws surface water from the Great Miami River and its historic hydraulic-canal lakes, supplemented by a gravel-pit reservoir, per federal intake records The water here

• Piqua City100% of residentsGreat Miami River + Ernst Gravel Pit + Swift Run Lake (hydraulic system)
• Country Meadows Condo.0% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2023: 0 of 2 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 0 of 1.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

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