About two hundred feet from here was once the location of the D. B. Tanner Dry Dock, built in 1863 on the former Clinton's Ditch alignment. Craftmen built and repaired canal cargo boats in the dry docks that carried grain, coal, lumber and the produce of the west to eastern markets. Tanner's was one of several dry docks that operated at different locations on the Enlarged Erie Canal. When the current system opened in 1918, Tanner's and many other dry docks on the Enlarged Erie Canal were abandoned. A dry dock was a basin connected to the canal by a narrow entrance. Similar to a lock, a gate or set of gates - with small valves called wickets mounted near the bottom to admit water into the lock - would allow a boat into the basin after it had been filled. After the wickets had been shut, and the dry dock sealed off from the main canal, the basin would be slowly drained. The boat would come to rest on wooden supports placed at regular intervals, allowing any necessary repairs to be made. After work was completed water would again be admitted into the basin and the vessel refloated and removed. Dry docks were also used to store boats over the winter. In 1904 Tanner served 300 boats, with storage fees ranging from $2 to $4 depending on the boat's size. Lock 52 and the Tanner Dry Docks (1 & 2) on the Schillner
map, c. 1896.
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