Penghu Islands experience strong winter monsoons, so the ancestors built towers at Lock Harbor to calm the wind and dispel bad luck. Since there were no high mountain barriers around Lock Harbor, the ancestors also erected twin towers at the sea‑going point, which served as orientation markers for fishermen at sea. Lock Harbor is a fishing port in Magong City, renowned for its small tube fish, and the fishing industry is very prosperous. Later, the town was called “Lock Harbor Town” because of the Minnan pronunciation of the small tube fish. The Lock Harbor stone towers consist of the South Tower (Wu Tower) and the North Tower (Zi Tower), located north of the old settlement. The towers are almost three stories tall and were originally situated on a small hill that served as the community’s ridge. The hill gradually eroded away from the strong northeast monsoon, and a local proverb emerged: “Lock Harbor has a mountain, a sow’s water a bay,” indicating that the sand dunes were blown into the harbor of the sow’s water (mountain water). Therefore, two large stone towers were built at the original site to replace the lost ridge and mitigate the damage to feng shui. The Lock Harbor stone towers are nine‑level, conical towers made of black stone masonry, one of the most primitive styles among Penghu’s stone towers. They were originally constructed with black stone, but in 1962 (the 51st year of the Republic of China) they were rebuilt using black stone cement material (composed of basalt, cement, and rubble). The footprint of the first level is about 66 square meters. Originally it was a seven‑level stacked stone tower, but after the 1962 reconstruction it was changed to nine levels, making it the tallest stone tower in all of Penghu, standing about fourteen meters high.
**Suggested visit duration**: 1 hour