Lock keeper
job responsible for managing a lock
A lock keeper, lock tender, or lock operator looks after a canal or river lock, operating it and if necessary maintaining it or organizing its maintenance. Traditionally, lock keepers lived on-site, often in small purpose-built cottages. A lock keeper may also be the operator for the lock's weir and, in many cases lock keepers play an important role in moderating and controlling water levels in response to drought and heavy rain. With the decline in commercial traffic the occupation is dying out on inland waterways, at least in Britain. Many previously staffed locks are now unstaffed. At large locks on large rivers, several locktenders report to the lockmaster, the manager in charge.
Pay and other compensation
The Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company in 1900 paid their lock keepers US$18 per month, with a rent free house. They often had small stores to sell groceries to passing boats and, among their duties, made minor repairs along the canal and at locks.
On the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal the lock keeper had a rent free house, an acre of land for a garden, and was paid a base of $150 a year. If he kept more than one lock, it was $50 for each extra lock, with a maximum of 3 locks.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lock keeper” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.