Lockport
Birthplace of Commercial Aluminum Manufacture. This is the
place---Lockport---where Charles Martin Hall really began to manufacture aluminum by his
commerical method.
Lockport
Birthplace of Commercial Aluminum Manufacture. This is the
place---Lockport---where Charles Martin Hall really began to manufacture aluminum by his
commerical method.
National Mechanical Engineering Heritage Site. - Lockport was headquarters of the Holly Manufacting Company. Read about here. Visit the ruins if you wish.
Early Law Office Of NYS Gov. Washington Hunt. - Our full Hunt section is under construction but we do have this for you now.
You Are In The Tourism Section Of
The
Lockport Home Page: www.Lockport-NY.com
THE PICTURE OF LOCKPORT
Lockport, Birthplace of the Aluminum Industry. History credits Charles Martin Hall, a young chemistry graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio, as the inventor of the a low-cost electrolyte process of recovering the metal, aluminum, from its ore. He made the laboratory discovery (The Hall Process) in February 1886 shortly after graduating and still using facilities at Oberlin. The Ohio location is honored as the fourteenth United States Historic Chemical Landmark. What hasn't been noted well, however, is that Hall came to Lockport to produce the first commercial aluminum. He arrived in July of 1887 and for the project at the old Cowles Chemical site off West Jackson Street, just west of the small bridge over Eighteen Mile Creek. Here he produced the first pure commercial quantities of aluminium. The price came down from $15 per pound to about $3 per pound. Cowles had an option on the process for six months but failed to exercise it. Hall went on to license the Pittsburgh Reducing Company which eventually became Aluminum Company of America. Cowles Chemical lost out on millions but survived into the late 1940's. The remains of this first aluminum plant is now a part of Van DeMark Chemical operations in the same area. There is no historical marker at the location and the property is not open for the public. Much of the same building layout can be seen today before foliage covers trees from West Jackson Street (where the picture of the original works was probably taken from).
National Mechanical Engineering Heritage Site. A historical marker located near the Canal Museum in the Lockport Locks complex notes that on the north side of the canal was the old Holly Manufacturing Company. The Holly System of fire protection and water supply was conceived here by inventor, Birdsill Holly (1820-1894), in 1863. Birdsill Holly earned over 150 patents, most related to water, pumps, and power. He was responsible for many inventions, end-products for many of which, were manufactured here in Lockport. Only limited ruins of the Holly Manufacturing Company, which once employed 500, remain along the north side of the canal.
The Governor Washington Hunt Law Office is one of many
historic buildings on the campus of the Lockport Museum of the Niagara County Historical
Society on Niagara Street. Washington Hunt, one of our most famous Lockportians,
failed to distinguish himself in his two years in Albany except for providing for very
important legislation for the Erie Barge Canal. We'd call it "pork"
today. But it was pork for Lockport and the Niagara Frontier. The state's
investment in the canal system was a great boom to Lockport. Hunt returned from Albany to
make a fortune in land deals, was on the Board of several local industries of national
significance, and well regarded around town. Lockport is a treasure bank of
information about Washington Hunt for historians.
Hunt is buried in Lockport. You may visit his impressive monument and historic site.
This Lockport Tourist Attraction Is Open Year Around:
The
Lockport Home Page: www.Lockport-NY.com
The Biggest Public Information Site In Niagara County On The
Web!