Miami-Erie Canal Site Historic District

Lock #38 is a hand-cut limestone canal lock on the Miami and Erie Canal at Rialto, in Butler County, Ohio, built in 1825 and 1826. The lock is 120 feet long and 15 feet wide, with walls five feet thick at the base. Nearby are a two-story frame gatekeeper's house from about 1870, a frame house built in 1897 for mill workers, and the foundations and limestone mill race of the Fox and Friend paper mill. Water backed up at the lock was channeled through the race to power the mill, which began as a sawmill in 1849, became a gristmill, and was converted to paper production in 1866. The district is significant for the link between the canal and the growth of milling at Rialto. Canal use declined with railroads and automobiles, an electric mule was tried in 1901, the canal was closed in 1929, and a 1932 fire ended the mill's operation.