Enlarging the Canal in Medina

Posted 11 July 2013 at 12:00 am

By Bill Lattin
Orleans County Historian

MEDINA – This picture taken in 1913 shows, in the foreground, the top of the aqueduct in the bottom of the canal in which the Oak Orchard Creek flows through. This is just before the water tumbles over Medina Falls.

This photo is looking west into the Erie Canal Basin at Medina when the last enlargement to this historic waterway was under construction. The building with a smoke stack in the middle ground in the A.L. Swett Electric Light and Power Co. Behind the stack is the tower of the Bancroft House. It was a hotel and is now the NAPA store. In the distance to the left appears the steeple of the First Baptist Church.