The Rockford Pumping Station
The Aberdeen-Springfield Canal's Rockford Pumping Station, defunct since about 1960(?)
12/2/20251 min read
in 1918, when electricity reached the Rockford area, the Aberdeen-Springfield Canal implemented a plan devised a decade earlier to pump water from the canal up to two higher laterals.
The station was placed just west about a half mile from the rock cut that Highway 39 passes through (if you look on the west side of the road where the railroad tracks run, you can see the cement structure that directed the east lateral's flow eastward under the tracks).
The lateral ran southeasterly along a ridge, eventually crossing Hilltop Road a mile south of Rockford, it was reportedly twelve miles long. Some of the flume work and trestling needed for the water to cross the canal remains. The original flume spanned 220 feet and ran from a basin on the west side to the lateral on the east. The west lateral also drew from that basin.
