Channahon State Park

The Channahon Access became a state park in 1932, known as the Channahon State Parkway. The I & M Canal officially closed in 1933 with the opening of the Illinois Waterway. The canal and its environs were in desperate need of cleanup and repairs. The Civilian Conservation Corps employed by the U.S. Department of the Interior were assigned clean-up and repair duty along the canal. The C.C.C. restored Locks 6 & 7 in Channahon, along with the locktender’s house at Lock 6. In the park, they built a large shelter of hand-hewn beams and flagstone flooring that stands today as a testimony to the young men who constructed it.