TCVG07 - Lock #48 Multi-Cache

Welcome to the Tulpehocken Creek Valley Geo-Trail. The Trail is co-sponsored by Berks County Parks and the US Army Corps of Engineers. This cache is one of twenty placed in and around County Parks and Blue Marsh Lake for your enjoyment.

There will be a “keyword” in each cache to be recorded on the TCVGT pamphlet available at the Berks County Parks and USACE websites. Be safe and have fun!

The Union Canal had 93 stone lift locks along its 79½ mile length. Lock #48E lifted or lowered barges by water a difference of five feet in elevation, by the lock tender. Many lock tenders lived in houses adjacent to the locks. You can see the depression in the ground, and foundation stones for the lock tender’s house at Lock No. 48 E, that was a 1½ story, ornately trimmed frame building.

The property adjacent to the lock was owned by the Machemer family (1830). In 1846, Captain Machemer operated the Union Canal barge named the "Citizen" which transported cargo from Van Reed's Mill (Stop 10) to Reading.