Northern End of the Enfield Canal, Connecticut

The Enfield Canal, also known as the Windsor Locks Canal, was built on the west side of the Connecticut River in 1829, to allow commercial shipping past the Enfield Falls, a rapids still visible in the river’s main channel. The canal runs for five miles, from the town of Windsor Locks, at the Interstate 91 bridge, to Suffield, where the abandoned locks at the northern end serve as an entry point for towpath. The locks have not operated since the 1970s. Though some of the towpath is operated as the public Windsor Locks Trail, the canal is off-limits, and controlled by Ahlstrom Nonwovens, a Scandinavian industrial fiber company, which operates a mill complex at the southern end of the canal.