PART FOUR

CANALS OF THE UNITED STATES

AND CANADA

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HARLEM SHIP CANAL. - 106.

Before improvement the Harlem river had an available depth of ten feet from the East river to Morris dock, except at High bridge where the depth was six feet. From Morris dock to Fordham landing there was a crooked channel seven feet deep, and above that point the river could be used only by vessels of small draught.

The existing project, adopted in 1878 and modified in 1886, provided for a continuous channel fifteen feet deep and four hundred feet wide, except at High bridge where it is only three hundred and seventy-five feet wide, and at Dyckman's meadow where, in a rock section, it is three hundred and fifty feet wide and eighteen feet deep.

In June, 1904, the depth was fourteen feet in the shoalest places and work is still in progress. The total cost of the work up to June, 1904, was $1,318,246.

The total tonnage conveyed over the canal in 1890 was 3,380,000 tons, in 1893, 5,910,376 tons, in 1895, 7,500,000 tons, and in 1903, 6,910,386 tons. Of these amounts, however, the most was handled in the lower part of the river. The through freight in 1903 amounted to about 1,500,000 tons.

SANTEE RIVER CANAL, OR ESTHERVILLE AND MINIM CREEK CANAL. - 107.

This canal, connecting Winyah Bay with the Santee river, South Carolina, should not be confused with the old Santee canal, as their locations are entirely different and the purposes distinct.

The Santee river was connected with Winyah Bay through Mosquito creek in accordance with a project adopted in 1880 and at an expense of $99,750.

In 1889 the project of constructing a canal from Estherville on Winyah Bay to Minim creek, an arm of the Santee river, was adopted and up to 1903, $172,185 had been expended on it.

This canal replaces an old canal called Winyah Bay canal, but does not occupy the same site.

The Mosquito creek route, although replaced by the more recent project, has been preserved and may still be used for longs, timber rafts, etc.

On the Estherville Minim creek canal there is a navigable channel fifty feet wide and five feet deep, except at the Winyah Bay end, where, on account of the mud encountered, the width has been made only forty feet and the depth, five feet.

From 1891 to 1902 the average total tonnage conveyed over the canal was 133,500 tons.

THE LOUISVILLE AND PORTLAND CANAL. - 108.

One plan for a canal to overcome the falls of the Ohio at Louisville (the falls of the Ohio) was advocated about 1793. The State of Kentucky, in 1825, granted a charter to a company for the construction of a canal, designed to enable navigation to avoid the dangerous passage of the falls. By acts of Congress, dated 1826 and 1829, the Federal Government became a party to the enterprise, taking shares of the company to the amount of $233,500.

The canal was opened for traffic in 1830 at a cost of $1,019,277. Being regarded from the beginning as a work of public utility more than as a commercial enterprise, it was always managed under State direction.

In eleven years the receipts from tolls surpassed the cost of the canal. The State employed this surplus revenue in purchasing the outstanding stock, and in 1855 the stock was all held by the State.

The company was invited to proceed with the enlargement of the canal and work on this enlargement was continued until 1868, when the funds gave out.

In 1868 the United States engineers went on with the work, which was completed in 1873 under the nominal control of the company. In 1874 the United States Government, in response to public opinion and the desire of the State of Kentucky, took entire control of and responsibility for the canal. During this period the Government had -expended $1,463,200. The total expenditure of the Government on this canal, from 1868 to 1904, amounted to $3,726,448. No tolls were collected after the year 1880. The cost to the United States Government, up to 1890, was over $2,600,000 above all receipts from the tolls collected.

In the years 1868-1887 the Indiana chute, so called, was made available for passing the falls at certain stages of the water, so that only a part of the commerce passing this point is forced to go down through the locks. The total amount expended on this project, up to 1887, was $125,000 and the estimated cost of perfecting it, $130,000.

The tolls on the Louisville and Portland canal were in the beginning excessive, as much as twenty-five cents a ton being paid for the passage of freight. This toll was reduced to five cents per ton in 1872 by the United States Government against the protest of the company owning the canal, and finally all tolls were abandoned in 1880.

The number of vessels passing the canal in the year ending June 30, 1904, was 5,500, carrying 1,349,371 tons of freight and 14,305 passengers. In the same year 1,500 boats passed the falls by the open river, carrying 542,016 tons of freight.

The average tonnage for the past twenty years by both canal and open river, taken together, is about 2,000,000 tons yearly.

{a = Average.}

{No tolls are charged.}

COOSA RIVER. - 109.

The Coosa river is formed at Rome, Ga., by the junction of the Oostenaula and Etowah rivers.

The Coosa has always been navigable for light draught boats from Rome, Ga., to Greensport, Ala., an estimated distance of one hundred and sixty-two miles, and this part of the river can be readily improved by channel works.

From this point down to the junction of the Tallapoosa river, the river is navigable at all seasons.

In 1889 and 1892 a system of locks and dams was projected by Congress that would furnish slack-water navigation from Rome, Ga., to Wetumpka, Ala.

Of the entire proposed system of locks and dams, thirty-one in number, only three have been completed, situated .68, 3.86 and 5.24 miles, respectively, below Greensport. Lock No. 4, 25.89 miles below Greensport, is practically completed and the rest of the system may be abandoned.

ILLINOIS AND MISSISSIPPI CANAL, OR HENNEPIN CANAL. - 110.

This canal is intended to be a link in the waterway from Lake Michigan at Chicago to a point on the Mississippi river at the mouth of the Rock river, four miles below the City of Rock Island.

This canal is being built by the National Government and has been reported as nearing completion for a number of years, but never as complete.

The canal begins one and one-half miles above the town of Hennepin on the Illinois river, extending thence sixty-two miles by the Bureau creek valley and over the summit to Rock river, near Colona, Ill.; thence by slack water down Rock river, eight and one-half miles, and by canal around the rapids in the lower part of Rock river, four and one-half miles, to the Mississippi river.

The total length of the canal, including the slack water, is seventy-five miles, and the total distance from Chicago to the Mississippi river by this route is one hundred and ninety-three and one-half miles.

The summit level of the canal is about eleven miles long and one hundred and ninety-six and four-tenths feet above the Illinois river. This ascent is overcome by twenty-one locks in a distance of forty-five and six-tenths miles.

The summit level is fed by a navigable feeder of the same size as the main canal and is twenty-nine miles long. The feeder conveys its supply from the Rock river, near Sterling, Ill. The feeder dam and locks extends a slack-water navigation on the Rock river up as far as Dixon, Ill.

The canal has been under construction since 1892 and may be completed in 1906; the total cost will be about $8,000,000. The total expenditures on the project amounted to $5,904,868 up to June 30, 1904. Four and one-half miles of the canal are completed, extending around the lower rapids of Rock river.

{No tolls are charged.}

DES MOINES RAPIDS CANAL. - 111.

The project of a canal on the Iowa side of the Mississippi river, to overcome the rapids in the river at this point, was adopted in 1867. The canal was to be three hundred feet wide in embankment and two hundred and fifty feet wide in excavation, with a minimum depth of five feet.

The canal was completed and opened to navigation, according to the original plans, in 1877, but the improvement was not entirely completed until 1893, the total cost being $4,574,900.

The traffic through this canal in 1902-3 consisted of six hundred and ninety-two steamboats and two hundred and twelve barges, carrying 33,382 passengers, 14,170 tons of merchandise and 23,921 bushels of grain. There also passed through the canal 18,940,636 f.b.m. of lumber, 2,850,000 feet of logs and about 7,000,000 lathes and shingles.

{a = Average.}

{No tolls are charged.}

SAINT MARY'S FALLS CANAL. - 112.

This is probably the most important canal in the country if not in the world, having a greater tonnage through it each year than the great Suez canal.

This canal around the rapids, between Lakes Huron and Superior, is situated about sixty miles from Lake Huron and fifteen miles from Lake Superior.

The rapids, or falls, about one-half mile long, have a descent in that distance varying from sixteen and one-half to twenty and one-half feet.

The first lock constructed here was on the Canadian side, built by the Hudson Bay Company in 1798. It was thirty-eight feet long, eight feet nine inches wide, with a lift of nine feet and a tow-path beside it for oxen to haul the bateaux and canoes through. This lock was destroyed by United States troops, from Mackinaw Island, under the command of Major Holmes, during the year 1814.

A canal and locks were next built, but the State of Michigan, on the American side, in the years 1853 and 1855. This is generally spoken of as the State canal. It was fifty-four hundred feet long and one hundred feet wide at the water-surface and thirteen feet deep.

There were two tandem locks, each three hundred and fifty feet long and seventy feet wide, with a lift of nine feet each. These locks were destroyed in 1888 to make room for the present Poe lock. Previous to this destruction, another and larger lock had been constructed about one hundred feet at one side of the old locks, and the channel preserved through the old locks, as well as through the new.

This new lock, called the Weitzel lock, was built by the United States Government in the years 1870-1 and was five hundred and fifteen feet long, eighty feet wide in the chamber, narrowing to sixty feet at the gates with seventeen feet of water on the sills.

The canal width was then increased to an average of one hundred and sixty feet and the stone slope walls were replaced with timber piers, having a vertical face. The depth of the canal at the same time was increased to sixteen feet.

In 1880 the canal was transferred by the State of Michigan to the United States, which, since that time, has operated the canal and improved it. No tolls have been charged since that date.

The Poe lock, eight hundred feet long, one hundred feet wide and having twenty-two feet of water on the sills, was built on the site of the old flight of two locks, parallel to the Weitzel and about one hundred feet east of it, in the years 1887 to 1896.

The depth of the water in the canal has been increased to twenty-five feet, and the entrance piers have been extended so that the total length of the canal is now one and six-tenths miles. The width is variable, being five hundred feet at the upper entrance, one hundred and eight feet at the movable dam, two hundred and seventy feet at the basin above the locks and one thousand feet at the lower entrance.

From the basin above the locks there are two distinct canal prisms, one leading to the Poe and one to the Weitzel lock.

The channel of the river below the locks has been improved so that it is now generally three hundred feet wide and twenty feet deep at mean stage.

The Poe lock can be filled or emptied in about seven minutes, and an unlockage of a boat three hundred and fifty feet long has been made in eleven minutes. The Weitzel lock can be operated in about the same time as the Poe lock.

The total expenditure on this canal, up to June, 1903, was $4,026,796.

STATEMENT OF THE COMMERCE THROUGH SAINT MARY'S FALLS CANAL FOR EACH CALENDAR YEAR FROM 1881 TO 1904.

{a From 1895 figures include traffic through Canadian canal, which opened to commerce September 9, 1895; in 1904 the date of closing is for American locks.}

STATEMENT OF THE COMMERCE THROUGH SAINT MARY'S FALLS CANAL FOR EACH CALENDAR YEAR FROM 1881 TO 1904.

FREIGHT TRAFFIC - Continued.

PORTAGE LAKE SHIP CANAL,

LAKE SUPERIOR SHIP CANAL,

KEWEENAW BAY AND LAKE SUPERIOR WATERWAY. - 113.

Portage lake, situated in Keweenaw peninsula, is separated from Lake Superior by a narrow strip of land on the east and is connected with Keweenaw bay, an arm of Lake Superior by Portage river, extending in a southwesterly direction.

The canal, cut through the narrow strip of land separating Portage lake from Lake Superior, has proved an important link in the commerce of the lakes.

Originally, the canal was built by the Portage Lake and Lake Superior Ship Canal Company in the years 1868 to 1873. This company received Government aid in the form of a grant of land needed for the canal and 400,000 acres of public land.

The canal was sold to a new company incorporated in 1877 (The Lake Superior Ship Canal Railway and Iron Company). It was always an unprofitable affair, the expenses eating up the entire revenue.

Portage river, which connects Portage lake with Keweenaw Bay and forms a part of the through waterway, was canalized by a company entirely distinct from the company constructing the Portage canal. The company that canalized the river was called the Portage Lake and River Improvement Company. This company, incorporated in 1861, was entirely without State or Government aid, and took care of its own interests.

These two works were purchased by the Federal Government at a cost of $350,000 for both.

Before purchase actually occurred, the United States had begun improvement. The canal, however, at the time of transfer, furnished only a crooked and badly lighted channel, with a narrow thirteen-foot navigation.

In 1903 the channel, for the most part, was nineteen feet deep and was then in process of being dredged to a depth of twenty feet. The bottom width of this channel is one hundred and twenty feet at present, and the depth, twenty feet.

The total cost of this improvement, to the Government, was $1,295,238 up to June 30, 1904.

During the navigation season of 1902 the commerce passing through the canal amounted to 2,419,331 tons of freight, valued at $65,326,819, and 47,987 passengers.

During the navigation season of 1903 the commerce through this waterway amounted to 2,346,310 tons of freight, valued at $64,524,986, and 32,850 passengers. There was also a local business of 74,538 tons of freight valued at $658,555.

From the commencement of the improvement by the United States, in 1891 to the close of the year 1903, the total freight on this canal aggregated about 16,355,770 tons, valued at $513,474,260, approximately.

SAINT CLAIR FLATS CANAL. - 114.

Before the Government commenced work here in 1855, boats were obliged to follow the natural delta outlet channels of the St. Clair river in order to get from the river to St. Clair lake.

Between 1855 and 1865 the Government spend $45,000 in gaining one or two feet in depth through these delta channels.

In 1866 the plan was adopted of dredging a straight cut across the flats thirteen feet deep and three hundred feet wide. In 1871 the canal was completed according to this plan and in 1872 the deepening of the channel to sixteen feet and to a width of two hundred feet was begun. In 1886 work was again begun of deepening the channel to eighteen and twenty feet and widening it to two hundred and sixty feet. This work was practically completed in 1892, at which date it was incorporated into the twenty to twenty-one-foot ship channel and in 1896 announced as entirely complete, at a total cost up to that time of $829,810.

The dredged material was deposited in dikes at each side of the channel, each dike being 7,221 feet long and protected by pile revetments. The clear width between the pile revetments was two hundred and ninety-five feet and there was a uniform depth of twenty feet.

In 1902 the construction of the second channel, three hundred feet long, at the side of the existing channel, was authorized and the work begun. This channel is to be uniform with the existing channel, and its purpose is to provide separate channels for ascending and descending boats in order to accommodate the large traffic passing this canal, which in the season of 1904 was 38,044,929 tons of 2,000 pounds, its estimated value being $403,276,247.40.

{a = Average.

{No tolls are charged.}

STURGEON BAY AND LAKE MICHIGAN CANAL. - 115.

This canal, built through one of the narrowest parts of the strip of land separating Green Bay from Lake Michigan, serves a double purpose. It opens a shorter route between the south coast of Lake Michigan and the ports of Green Bay. It also provides, in Sturgeon Bay, a harbor of refuge for all lake craft.

In 1866, in order to encourage the building of this canal, the United States granted to the State of Wisconsin 200,000 acres of land, the proceeds of the sale of which were to be used in such construction.

The State, instead of taking up the work itself, made over the concession of land in 1868 to the Sturgeon Bay and Lake Michigan Ship Canal and Harbor Company.

This company bound itself to construct within three years, and to maintain a canal one hundred feet wide at water-surface and with a minimum depth of thirteen feet. Also, it was to provide an approach to the canal that would allow the safe entry of vessels in stormy weather.

The work was not finished until 1881 after various periods of abandonment. The work was not thoroughly done and the United States Government was forced to take charge of the harbor works at the entrance.

The canal was never in a satisfactory condition to serve its intended purpose till after 1893, when Congress took possession of the works and at once undertook their improvement.

The project now under way, adopted in 1902, provides for increasing the depth of the canal to twenty-one feet.

The maximum draught that could be carried in 1903 was fourteen and one-half feet in the canal and sixteen and one-half in the harbor; the canal was one hundred and sixty feet wide at water-surface in part and two hundred and fifty feet wide between revetments in the westerly thousand feet.

The commerce making use of the canal is varied and important.

The total expenditures of the National Government since 1872 amount to about $600,000.

In the calendar year of 1902 there passed through the canal 638,835 tons of freight, valued at $21,947,885 and 15,861 passengers.

{a = Average.

{No tolls are charged.}

GALVESTON AND BRAZOS CANAL. - 116.

This canal was built in the years 1850 and 1851 to connect the natural waterways which lie along the coast between Galveston and the mouth of the Brazos river. The total distance is thirty-eight miles, of which only eight miles is canal proper.

In 1902 the canal was purchased by the United States for $30,000, it being filled with mud and snags so that there was not more than fourteen inches or two feet of water in the shallow places.

The project now under way is that of security a six-foot navigable channel throughout.

THE CASCADES CANAL. - 117.

Where the Columbia river passes through the Cascade range there is a narrow gorge, in which occur the rapids known as the Cascades of the Columbia. To get around these rapids is the purpose of the canal. The original project for a canal and locks at an estimated cost of $2,544,545, adopted in 1877, was modified in 1888 to include the improvement of the channel below the falls so as to ensure an eight-foot channel at all stages, with a lock four hundred and sixty-two feet long and ninety feet wide. This project was again modified in 1894 so as to provide for a second lock above the upper lock-gates.

The works were partially completed and were opened to navigation in the fall of 1896.

Counting the estimated amount necessary to complete this work, the total cost will be $4,007,260.

The maximum draught that can safely pass the locks is about seven feet.

{No tolls are charged.}

THE PANAMA CANAL. INTEROCEANIC CANAL. - 118.

In 1879 an International Congress met in Paris and under the influence of M. de Lesseps recommended the building of a sea-level canal across the Isthmus of Panama. Immediately thereafter de Lesseps formed a stock company under the name Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interoceanique for the building of such a canal.

The work of construction was begun in 1881 and continued under the greatest difficulties until 1889. During this time large numbers of the employees of the canal company died from malarial and yellow fevers. Floods, landslides, tropical vegetation and labor troubles combined to discourage those in charge of the undertaking.

In order to make the building of the canal possible the company was obliged to relinquish the idea of a sea-level canal and adopt a plan involving the construction of locks. This change in plan was made in 1887 and the work was carried on according to the new plans for two years thereafter.

In 1889 the company's affairs became so badly involved that a commission was appointed to investigate the management of the enterprise. Gross frauds and extravagances were unearthed, effectually wrecking the old company, and not till 1894 was a new company formed to complete the canal. This company spent large sums of money in conducting engineering investigations, but did not accomplish much in actual construction.

The purchase of the new company's rights in 1903 by the United States Government for $40,000,000, and the payment of $10,000,000 to the Republic of Panama, put this project into the hands of the United States Government.

There are now under consideration several plans for the construction of the canal, by the commission appointed by the President. In the meantime the work of sanitation, the making of surveys and investigations, of railroad construction, and making of excavations are being vigorously carried on. The plans all consider a canal extending from Colon on the Atlantic to Panama on the Pacific. The canal is expected to be about forty-six miles long and the prism is expected to be one hundred and fifty feet wide on the bottom and thirty-five feet deep. The height of the summit level was for some time undetermined. A majority of the Advisory Board of Engineers were in favor of a sea-level canal, but Congress has decided in favor of a lock canal, and probably an 85-foot level will be adopted.

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Transcribed from the original and html prepared by Bill Carr, last updated 2/20/99.