We arrived at 5 PM and were disappointed to see everything locked up especially as the sign on the gate said closed at 6 PM. We drove down from Indianapolis to see this so it was quite disapointing.

We stopped by on our way home. You could walk right up and see everything. There were some stations that you could press a button to hear information, unfortunately only one of them worked. The informative plaques were too faded to read. Our kids liked it and we looked up information in our phones to show them.

The locks are “temporarily closed”. We went to the visitor viewing area and everything was closed with tall chain link fences and multiple No Trespassing signs.

This is an interesting place to visit (especially for an engineer). We were lucky to be there when a barge went through the locks. The area is not easy to find. They have a covered seating area near the locks so you can rest and wait for a ship to pass through.

Stopped here early in the morning of our last day in Louisville. My husband is an engineer, and whenever there is an opportunity to view a lock or a dam, we are there. Things were pretty quiet at McAlpine Locks that morning, with only police boats in the area. Still interesting to look at the set-up of the lock and the dam.