Mule Power

&#8220;Here at Four Locks mule barn, mules rested during the winter months. Boat captains left their mules here, paying a mule tended to care for them. Often the mules grew thin because the keeper did not feed the mules as well as their owners did. Mules were the ‘engines’ for the canal boats.<br><br>Normally, a boat captain had four. Two worked while two rested in their stall in the front of the boat. Captains usually cared for mules as if they were part of the family. In the canal’s peak years, the 1870s, there were about 3,000 mules working on the canal.