17) Fish Ladder & New England Power Company Visiting Information Center
From the canal's earliest days, its waters were diverted into sluiceways to power mills. By 1898, a local utility was generating electricity with canal water. In the late 1920s, the present concrete dam and Georgian Revival-style brick hydroelectric powerhouse were built where the former canal veered sharply to the southwest. A fish ladder was completed in 1982 to reintroduce salmon to the upper Connecticut for the first time since the 1790s, when the river was dammed for the canal. Now fish move up the ladder much the way earlier canal boats moved up the locks. Just above the powerhouse is a visitor's center with information about fish migration and local history.
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