Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) [Illustration: WILLIAM O. HUDSON President, Board of Commissioners of Port of New Orleans] FOREWORD. Oh the mind of man! Frail, untrustworthy, perishable--yet able to stand unlimited agony, cope with the greatest forces of Nature and build against a thousand years. Passion can blind it--yet it can read in infinity the difference between right and wrong. Alcohol can unsettle it--yet it can create a poem or a harmony or a philosophy that is immortal. A flower pot falling out of a window can destroy it--yet it can move mountains. If Man had a tool that was as frail as his mind, he would fear to use it. He would not trust himself on a plank so liable to crack. He would not venture into a boat so liable to go to pieces. He would not drive a tack with a hammer, the head of which is so liable to fly off. But Man knows that what the mind can conceive, that can he execute. So Man sits in his room and plans the things the world thought impossible. From the known he dares the unknown. He covers paper with figures, conjures forth a blue print, and sends an army of workmen against the forces of Nature. If his mind blundered, he would waste millions in money and perhaps destroy thousands of lives. But Man can trust his mind; fragile though it is, he knows it can bear the strain of any task put upon it. All over the world there is the proof: in the heavens above, and in the waters under the earth. And nowhere has Man won a greater triumph over unspeakable odds than in New Orleans, in the dredging of a canal through buried forests 18,000 years old, the creation of an underground river, and the building of a lock that was thought impossible. The Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor of New Orleans History, Description and Economic Aspects of Giant Facility Created to Encourage Industrial Expansion and Develop Commerce By Thomas Ewing Dabney Published by Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans Second Port U. S. A. May, 1921 (Copyright, 1921, by Thomas Ewing Dabney). CONTENTS FOREWORD 2 THE NEED RECOGNIZED FOR A CENTURY 5 NEW ORLEANS DECIDES TO BUILD CANAL 8 SMALL CANAL FIRST PLANNED 13 THE DIRT BEGINS TO FLY 17 CANAL PLANS EXPANDED 22 DIGGING THE DITCH 27 OVERWHELMING ENDORSEMENT BY NEW ORLEANS 31 SIPHON AND BRIDGES 36 THE REMARKABLE LOCK 40 NEW CHANNEL TO THE GULF 48 WHY GOVERNMENT SHOULD OPERATE CANAL 54 ECONOMIC ASPECT OF CANAL 60 CONSTRUCTION COSTS AND CONTRACTORS 66 OTHER PORT FACILITIES 70 COMPARISON OF DISTANCES BETWEEN NEW ORLEANS AND THE PRINCIPAL CITIES AND PORTS OF THE WORLD 78 THE NEED RECOGNIZED FOR A CENTURY. There is a map in the possession of T. P. Thompson of New Orleans, who has a notable collection of books and documents on the early history of this city, dated March 1, 1827, and drawn by Captain W. T. Poussin, topographical engineer, showing the route of a proposed canal to connect the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, curiously near the site finally chosen for that great enterprise nearly a hundred years later. New Orleans then was a mere huddle of buildings around Jackson Square; but with the purchase of the Louisiana territory from France, and the great influx of American enterprise that characterized the first quarter of the last century, development was working like yeast, and it was foreseen that New Orleans' future depended largely upon connecting the two waterways mentioned--the river, that drains the commerce of the Mississippi Valley, at our front door, and the lake, with its short-cut to the sea and the commerce of the world, at the back. When the Carondelet canal, now known as the Old Basin Canal, was begun in 1794, the plan was to extend it to the river. It was also planned to connect the New Basin Canal, begun in 1833, with the Mississippi. This was, in fact, one of the big questions of the period. That the work was not put through was due more to the lack of machinery than of enterprise. During the rest of the century, the proposal bobbed up at frequent intervals, and the small Lake Borgne canal was finally shoved through from the Mississippi to Lake Borgne, which is a bay of Lake Pontchartrain. The difference between these early proposals and the plan for the Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor that was finally adopted, is that the purpose in the former case was simply to develop a waterway for handling freight, whereas the object of New Orleans' great facility, now nearing completion, is to create industrial development. Under the law of Louisiana, inherited from the Spanish and French regimes, river frontage can not be sold or leased to private enterprise. This law prevents port facilities being sewed up by selfish interests and insures a fair deal for all shipping lines, new ones as well as old, with a consequent development of foreign trade; and port officials, at harbors that are under private monopoly, would give a pretty if the Louisiana system could be established there. But there is no law, however good, that meets all conditions, and a number of private enterprises--warehouses and factories--have undoubtedly been kept out of New Orleans because they could not secure water frontage. An artificial waterway, capable of indefinite expansion, on whose banks private enterprise could buy or lease, for a long period of time, the land for erecting its buildings and plants, without putting in jeopardy the commercial development of the port; a waterway that would co-ordinate river, rail and maritime facilities most economically, and lend itself to the development of a "free port" when the United States finally adopts that requisite to a world commerce--that was the recognized need of New Orleans when the proposal for connecting the two waterways came to the fore in the opening years of the present century. The Progressive Union, later the Association of Commerce, took a leading part in the propaganda; it was assisted by other public bodies, and forward-looking men, who gradually wore away the opposition with which is received every attempt to do something that grandfather didn't do. And on July 9, 1914, the legislature of Louisiana passed Act No. 244, authorizing the Commission Council of New Orleans to determine the site, and the Board of Port Commissioners of Louisiana, or Dock Board, as it is more commonly called, to build the Industrial Canal. The act gave the board a right to expropriate all property necessary for the purpose, to build the "necessary locks, slips, laterals, basins and appurtenances * * * in aid of commerce," and to issue an unlimited amount in bonds "against the real estate and canal and locks and other improvements * * * to be paid out of the net receipts of said canal and appurtenances thereof, after the payment of operating expenses * * * (and) to fix charges for tolls in said canal." This was submitted to a vote of the people at the regular election in November of that year, and became part of the constitution. To avoid the complication of a second mortgage on the property, the Dock Board subsequently (ordinance of June 29, 1918) set a limit on the total bond issue. To enable the development that was then seen to be dimly possible, it set this limit high--at $25,000,000. NEW ORLEANS DECIDES TO BUILD CANAL. The canal for which the legislature made provision in 1914 bears about the relation to the one that was finally built as the acorn does to the oak. It was to be a mere barge canal that might ultimately be enlarged to a ship canal. Its cost was estimated at $2,400,000, which was less than the cost of digging the New Basin canal nearly a century before, which was a great deal smaller and ran but half way between the lake and river. The panic of the early days of the World War shoved even this modest plan to one side, and it was not until the next year that enthusiasm caught its second wind. Then the leading men and the press of the city put themselves behind the project once more. As the New Orleans Item said, October 22, 1915, "the lack of that canal has already proven to have cost the city much in trade and developed industry." Commenting on the "astonishing exhibition of intelligent public spirit" in New Orleans, the Chicago Tribune said that "no other city in or near the Mississippi Valley, including Chicago, has shown such an awakening to the possibilities and rearrangements that are following the cutting of the Panama canal. * * * The awakening started with the talk of the new canal." Other papers throughout the country made similar expressions. In 1915 the engineering firm of Ford, Bacon & Davis made a preliminary survey of conditions and how development would be affected by the canal. At about the same time the Illinois legislature voted to spend $5,000,000 to construct a deep water canal, giving Chicago water connection with the Mississippi River; and the New Orleans Item linked the two projects when it said, January 16, 1916, "the Illinois-Lake Michigan Canal and the New Orleans Industrial Canal are complementary links in a new system of waterways connecting the upper Valley through the Mississippi River and New Orleans with the Gulf and the Panama Canal. This system again gives the differential to the Valley cities in trade with the markets of the Orient, our own west coast, and South America." Commodore Ernest Lee Jahncke, president of the Association of Commerce, issued a statement to the press January 16, 1916, declaring that the prospect of the canal "brightened the whole business future of this city and the Mississippi Valley"; the New Orleans Real Estate Board and the Auction Exchange, in a joint meeting, urged its speedy building; and Governor Luther E. Hall, in a formal statement to the press January 16, 1916, gave his endorsement to the construction of the canal "long sought by many commercial interests of New Orleans," and said that work would probably begin in "three months." In August, 1916, the governor dismissed the Dock Board and appointed a new one. In the confusion attending the reorganization the canal project was again dropped. The New Orleans American, on August 28, 1916, attempted to revive it, but the effort fell flat, and the plan laid on ice until 1918. America had in the meantime thrown its hat into the ring, and the cry was going up for ships, more ships, and still more ships. National patriotism succeeded where civic effort had failed. New Orleans brought out its Industrial Canal project to help the country build the famous "bridge of boats." But this new phase of the plan was far from the canal that was finally built. In fact, the accomplishment of this project has shown a remarkable development with the passing years, reminding one of the growth of the trivial hopes of the boy into the mighty achievement of the man. Ships could not be built on the Mississippi River. The twenty-foot range in the water level would require the ways to make a long slope into the current, a work of prohibitive expense, and as nearly impossible from an engineering standpoint as anything can be. Early in 1918 a committee of representative Orleanians began to study the situation. This was known as the City Shipbuilding Committee. It comprised Mayor Behrman, O. S. Morris, president of the Association of Commerce; Walter Parker, manager of that body; Arthur McGuirk, special counsel of the Dock Board; R. S. Hecht, president of the Hibernia Bank; Dr. Paul H. Saunders, president of the Canal-Commercial Bank; J. D. O'Keefe, vice-president of the Whitney-Central Bank; J. K. Newman, financier; G. G. Earl, superintendent of the Sewerage and Water Board; Hampton Reynolds, contractor; D. D. Moore, James M. Thompson and J. Walker Ross, of the Times-Picayune, Item and States, respectively. On February 10, 1918, this committee laid the plans for an industrial basin, connected with the river by a lock, and ultimately to be connected with the lake by a small barge canal. Ships could be built on the banks of this basin, the water in which would have a fixed level. Mr. Hecht, and Arthur McGuirk, special counsel of the Dock Board, devised the plan by which the project could be financed. The Dock Board would issue long-term bonds, and build the necessary levees with the material excavated from the canal. The committee's formal statement summarized the public need of this facility as follows: "1. It will provide practical, convenient and fixed-level water-front sites for ship and boat building and repair plants, for industries and commercial enterprises requiring water frontage. "2. It will provide opportunities for all enterprises requiring particular facilities on water frontage to create such facilities. "3. It will permit the complete co-ordination, in the City of New Orleans, of the traffic of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, of the Intracoastal Canal, the railroads and the sea, under the most convenient and satisfactory conditions. "4. In connection with the publicly-owned facilities on the river front, it will give New Orleans all the port and harbor advantages enjoyed by Amsterdam with its canal system, Rotterdam and Antwerp with their joint river and ocean facilities; Hamburg with its free port, and Liverpool with its capacity as a market deposit. "5. It will give New Orleans a fixed-level, well protected harbor. "6. It will serve the purposes of the Intracoastal Canal and increase the benefits to accrue to New Orleans from that canal. "7. In connection with revived commercial use of the inland waterways upon which the federal government is now determined, it will open the way for an easy solution of the problem of handling, housing and interchange of water-borne commerce, and of the development of facilities for the storage of commodities between the period of production and consumption. "8. It will prove an important facility in the equipment of New Orleans to meet the new competition the enlarged Erie Canal will create. The original Erie Canal harmed New Orleans because Mississippi River boat lines could not build their own terminal and housing facilities at New Orleans." [Illustration: W. A. KERNAGHAN Vice-President RENÉ CLERC Secretary ALBERT MACKIE HUGH McCLOSKEY COMMISSIONERS Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans] This meeting made industrial history in New Orleans. The Hecht plan was studied by lawyers and financiers and declared feasible. Mr. Hecht summarized the confidence of the far-visioned men in the new New Orleans when he declared in a public interview: "I feel there is absolutely nothing to prevent the immediate realization of New Orleans' long dream of becoming a great industrial and commercial center and having great shipbuilding plants located within the city limits." And the Item said, in commenting on the undertaking (February 17, 1918): "Millions of dollars of capital will be ready to engage in shipbuilding in New Orleans the moment that piledrivers and steam shovels are set to work on the shiplock and navigation canal." It was a time of great industrial excitement. Victory was at last in the grasp of New Orleans. The eyes of the country were on New Orleans. The cry was, "Full Speed Ahead!" SMALL CANAL FIRST PLANNED. The plan, at this time, was to have a lock-sill only 16 or 18 feet deep. This would be sufficient to allow empty ships to enter or leave the canal, but not loaded. The mere building of ships was thus the principal thought, despite the rhetoric on commercial and industrial possibilities. Perhaps the leaders who were beating the project into shape were themselves afraid to think in the millions necessary to do the work to which New Orleans finally dedicated itself; perhaps they realized that the figure would stagger the minds of the people and defeat the undertaking, if they were not gradually educated up to the mark. Meeting on February 15, 1918, the Dock Board resolved unanimously to put the plan through, if it proved feasible. W. B. Thompson was president of the board; the other members were Dr. E. S. Kelly, Thomas J. Kelly, B. B. Hans and O. P. Geren. Later, E. E. Lafaye took Mr. Kelly's place on the board. The Public Belt Railroad board had in the meantime (February 13) voted to pay the Dock Board $50,000 a year; and the Levee Board (February 14) to give $125,000 a year. As the plans were increased, the Levee Board later increased its bit to $925,000. Mayor Behrman, Arthur McGuirk and R. S. Hecht laid the proposition before both bodies. Action was unanimous. Colonel J. D. Hill, speaking for the Belt Railroad Board, said: "I am glad that at last there has been outlined a plan which seemingly makes it possible to construct the canal. It will not only result in the eventual construction of a big fleet of ships, but will prepare the way for a tremendous industrial activity in other lines. The consensus has been that a navigation canal is needed to induce large manufacturers, importers and exporters to establish their factories and warehouses here. This project will be the opening wedge." Members of the Public Belt Board voting, besides Colonel Hill and Mayor Behrman (ex-officio) were Ginder Abbott, Arthur Simpson, John H. Murphy, W. B. Bloomfield, Adam Lorch, George P. Thompson, Thomas F. Cunningham, Victor Lambou, Edgar B. Stern and Sam Segari. Members of the Levee Board voting were: William McL. Fayssoux, president, Thomas Killeen, Thomas Smith, John F. Muller, James P. Williams, John P. Vezien. W. B. Thompson, president, put the matter before the Dock Board. "The idea" he said, according to the minutes of the meeting of February 15, 1918, "had always received his approval, and he thought that the mayor would recall that in the preparation, he with the city attorney, had a very considerable part in framing the same, and he had taken an active interest in the matter; he had always been in favor of the Industrial Canal, and he believed in the possibility of development of New Orleans through this, as a terminus; and it was entirely logical that the Dock Board should do all that may lie within its power to bring about the successful consummation of this project; the only doubt in his mind being as to the feasibility of the project from the financial standpoint. It seems now, however, that a plan has been devised, through efforts of the mayor and Mr. Hecht, which gives every promise of success. The co-operation of the city on behalf of the Public Belt Railroad, and of the Levee Board, apparently removed the difficulties in respect to the financial end. The Dock Board welcomes the assistance and co-operation of the city and of the Levee Board, but inasmuch as these boards are merely contributing certain amounts per year, and whereas the Dock Board is the obligor in respect of the principal of the bond issue, it devolves upon the Dock Board to use great caution before committing itself to any particular plan in a matter which so vitally affects the credit of the Dock Board, the city of New Orleans and the Levee Board. President Thompson further stated that he unhesitatingly endorsed the project and that he was sure that every member of the board agreed, and the board would be glad to give prompt consideration to the particular plan in question and reach some conclusion which will insure the realization of this great project." To estimate the probable cost of the canal, Mayor Behrman appointed the following committee of engineers: W. J. Hardee, city engineer; A. F. Barclay, engineer of the Public Belt Railroad; George G. Earl, superintendent of the Sewerage & Water Board; C. T. Rayner, Jr., engineer of the Levee Board and Hampton Reynolds, contractor. On February 22, the committee reported that, not counting real estate, a canal could be built for $2,626,876. This estimate called for a lock 600 feet long, 70 feet wide, and 18 feet deep, and a barge canal to the lake. The cost of constructing the lock was put at $1,370,660, and of digging the canal $1,256,216. This report was first received by a special committee composed of Mayor Behrman, W. B. Thompson, Col. J. B. Hill, R. S. Hecht and Major W. McL. Fayssoux. This committee referred it to the Dock Board, which adopted it February 22. Financial arrangements were completed at this same meeting. In order to have sufficient to pay for the land which would have to be expropriated for the canal, and to give some leeway, it was decided to issue bonds for $3,500,000, with an option of floating $1,000,000 more within 30 days. A financial syndicate, consisting of the Hibernia, Interstate and Whitney-Central banks of New Orleans, the William R. Compton Investment Company of St. Louis, and the Halsey, Stuart Company of Chicago, agreed to take the entire issue. The bonds were to run 40 years and begin to mature serially after 10 years. They were to bear 5 per cent interest, and to be sold at 95. They would be secured by a mortgage on the real estate of the canal site, and by the taxing powers of the state, for they were a recognized state obligation, as Arthur McGuirk, special counsel of the Dock Board, pointed out in his opinion of July 10, 1918. He added: "I am likewise of opinion that said bonds are unaffected by any limitations upon the state debt, or upon the rate of taxation for public purposes; that the said bonds are entitled to be paid out of the general funds, or by the exercise of the power of taxation insofar as the revenues, funds or property preferentially pledged or mortgaged to secure said issue may fail, or be insufficient, to pay the same." The following sat with the Dock Board and its attorneys at the meeting of February 22: Mayor Behrman, J. D. Hill of the Public Belt Railroad, R. S. Hecht, president of the Hibernia Bank, J. D. O'Keefe, vice-president of the Whitney-Central Bank, C. G. Reeves, vice-president of the Interstate Bank, W. R. Compton of the Compton Investment Company, H. L. Stuart of Halsey, Stuart and Company, W. J. Hardee, city engineer, and Hampton Reynolds, contractor. The selection of the site was left, by the state law, to the commission council. There were a number of possible routes, and the selection was made with the utmost secrecy to prevent real estate profiteering. At first the area bounded by France and Reynes streets was chosen. This was on February 28. On May 9, however, the site was changed to the area bounded by France and Lizardi streets, north from the Mississippi River to Florida Walk, thence to Lake Pontchartrain. This is a virtually uninhabited region in the Third District, through the old Ursulines tract. The site chosen for expropriation is five and a third miles long by 2,200 feet wide, 897 acres. For this land the Dock Board paid $1,493,532.24, which is at the rate of $1,665 an acre. The valuation was reached by expropriation proceedings. In the meantime, Commodore Ernest Lee Jahncke had asked to be allotted the first site on the Industrial Canal, and Doullut & Williams for the second. Both were for shipyards. The Foundation Company, which was operating a number of shipyards in various parts of the country, sent an engineer here to see if it would be feasible for the concern to build a shipyard here. Even before the piledrivers and dredges were on the job, the millions were being counted for investment in the city whose remarkable enterprise had won the admiration of the country. THE DIRT BEGINS TO FLY. Until the money for the bond issue should be available, the Hibernia Bank authorized the Dock Board to draw against it on open account. It only remained, then, to secure the authorization of the Capital Issues Committee of the Federal Reserve Board, which controlled all bond issues during the World War, to start the work. The grounds on which the authorization was requested summarize conditions that make possible a great industrial development in New Orleans, and will stand quoting. They are: "(a) Semi-tropical conditions, which make it feasible to work every day and night in the year; "(b) Admirable housing conditions which render it feasible for labor to live under most sanitary conditions in houses closely proximate to both the plants and the city, with sewerage and water connections, and with street car transportation facilities to and from the plants and to and from the amusement centers of the city; "(c) Ample labor supply and satisfactory labor conditions; "(d) Proximity to timber, steel and coal sources of supply with all water as well as rail transportation facilities thereon; "(e) State control of the canal facilities and operation of the same, not for profit, but for the economical and expeditious development of shipbuilding." Two shipyards were established on the canal. They poured millions of dollars into New Orleans. The tremendous tonnage built in the United States during the war, and the slump in foreign trade that followed the armistice, due to financial conditions abroad, have caused many shipyards throughout the United States to close down, among them one of these at New Orleans. The other one is now finishing its war contracts, and will be more or less inactive until the demands of the American Merchant Marine and business in general open up again. If they are not used for shipbuilding, they can be used for ship repairing or building barges. And it is obvious that the same conditions that made ship building an economic possibility, will encourage other industrial production, especially production that requires the co-ordination of river, rail and maritime facilities. The Canal means millions of new money to New Orleans, as its proponents said it would. On March 12, the authorization of the Capital Issues Committee was given. On March 15, the George W. Goethals Company, Inc., was retained as consulting engineers on the big job. The services of this company were secured as much for its engineering skill, proven by its work on the Panama Canal, as for the prestige of its name. The Goethals Company, co-operating with the engineers of the Dock Board, which did the work, designed the famous lock and directed the entire job. George M. Wells, vice-president of the firm, was put in active charge of the work. General Goethals made occasional visits of supervision. The dirt began to fly on June 6, 1918. Before coming to New Orleans to take up his work, Mr. Wells, acting upon instructions of the Dock Board, called at the office of the Foundation Company in New York, whose engineer had already studied the possibilities of establishing a shipyard on the canal, and guaranteed an outlet to the sea by the time its vessels should be finished. The river end of the site chosen for the canal consisted of low and flat meadow land. There were a few houses helter-skeltered about, like blocks in a nursery, but the principal signs of human life were the cows that grazed where the grazing was good, and sought refuge from the noonday beams of the sun under the occasional oaks that had strayed out into the open and didn't know how to get back. The middle of the site--several miles in extent--was a gray cypress swamp, with five or six hundred trees to the acre, and always awash. The lake end was "trembling prairie" marsh land subject to tidal overflow and very soft. [Illustration: N. O. ARMY SUPPLY BASE] [Illustration: BUILDING LAKE ENTRANCE] With dredges, spades, mechanical excavators, piledrivers and dynamite the work opened. A great force of men began to throw up by hand, the levees that were to serve as banks for the turning basin, the lock and other portions of the canal. This levee would keep the liquid material, dredged out, from running back into the excavation. The turning basin, 950 feet by 1,150 feet, was an expansion of the original industrial basin. Situated several hundred feet from the lock, its purpose is to enable ships entering the canal from the river, and passing through the lock, to turn in, as well as to furnish a site for the concentration of industries. The Foundation Company had in the meantime decided to establish a shipyard on this basin; its engineers were on the ground, and its material was rolling. One dredge was sent around Lake Pontchartrain to commence boring in from that end. This could not be done on the river end. The Mississippi is too mighty a giant to risk such liberties. The 2,000-foot cut between the river and the lock would have to be done last of all, when the rest of the canal and the lock were finished, and the new levees that would protect the city against its overflow, were solidly set. But a few hundred feet from the turning basin, was Bayou Bienvenu, which runs into Lake Borgne, part of Lake Pontchartrain, and one of the refuges of Lafitte in the brave days when smuggling was more a sport of the plain people than it is now with European travel restricted to the wealthy. So through Bayou Bienvenu a small excavator was sent to cut a passage into the turning basin, to allow the mighty 22-inch dredges to get in and work outwards towards the lake and the lock site. The problem was further complicated by the Florida Walk drainage system, which emptied into Bayou Bienvenu, and by the railway lines that crossed the site of the Canal. These railways were the Southern Railway, at the lake end, the Louisville & Nashville, at the middle, and the Southern and Public Belt near the turning basin on Florida Walk. For them, the Dock Board had to build "run-around" tracks, to be used while their lines were cut to enable the dredging to be made and the bridges to be constructed. For the drainage, the plans called for the construction of an inverted siphon passing under the Canal, a river under a river, so to speak. In the meantime, however, the drainage canal had to be blocked off with two cofferdams, to cut off the water from the city and the bayou, and enable the construction of the siphon between. Additional railroad tracks, too, had to be built to handle the immense volume of material needed for the work; roads had to be built for getting supplies on the job by truck; the trolley line had to be extended for the transportation of labor. Week by week the labor gangs grew, as the men were able to find places in the attacking line of the industrial battle. Great excavators stalked over the land, pulling themselves along by their dippers which bit out chunks of earth as big as a cart when they "took a-hold"; the smack of pile drivers, the thump of dynamite, and the whistle of dredges filled the air. Buildings sprouted like mushrooms; in the meadow, half a mile from the nearest water, the shipyard of the Foundation Company began to take form. It was the plan to finish the Canal by January, 1920. CANAL PLANS EXPANDED. Work in the meantime had begun on the commodity warehouse and wharf, another facility planned by the Dock Board to relieve the growing pains. Built on the Canal, but opening on the river, it was to perform the same service for general commodities as the Public Cotton Warehouse and the Public Grain Elevator did for those products. Though not a part of the canal plan, the construction of the warehouse at this point was part of the general scheme to concentrate industrial development on that waterway. Later, the Federal Government took over this work and gave New Orleans a $13,000,000 terminal, through which it handled army supplies. It is still using the three warehouses for storage purposes, but has leased the half-mile double-deck wharf to the Dock Board, which is devoting it to the general commerce of the port. In time, the Dock Board hopes to get at least one of the buildings. There can be no doubt but that the enterprise of New Orleans in building the Industrial Canal had a great deal to do with the government's determination to establish a depot at New Orleans. On May 30, the news came out of Washington that the Doullut & Williams Shipbuilding Company had been awarded a $15,000,000 contract by the Emergency Fleet Corporation to build eight ships of 9,600 tons each. This was the largest shipbuilding contract that had been given the South. The Industrial Canal rendered it possible. The firm of Doullut & Williams had been engaged for fifteen years or so in the civil engineering and contracting business in New Orleans. Captain M. P. Doullut had built launches with his own hands when a young man, and dreamed of the time when he would have a yard capable of turning out ocean-going vessels. The Doullut & Williams Shipbuilding Company was organized April 25, 1918, with the following officers: M. P. Doullut, president; Paul Doullut, vice-president; W. Horace Williams, secretary-treasurer and general manager; L. H. Guerin, chief engineer; and James P. Ewin, assistant chief engineer. "I feel that New Orleans is on the eve of a very remarkable development" said Senator Ransdell of Louisiana in a telegram of congratulation, "and earnestly hope our people will continue to work together with energy and hearty accord until we have gone way over the top in shipbuilding and many other lines." The expression "over the top" had not become the pest that it and other war-time weeds of rhetoric have subsequently proven. That was a time when one could still refer to a "drive" without causing a gnashing of teeth. Picking the site at the Lake Pontchartrain end of the canal, Doullut & Williams Shipbuilding Company began to erect its shipyard. The plant buildings were erected upon tall piling. As the dredges excavated the material from the cut, they deposited it on the site of the shipyard and raised the elevation several feet, so the buildings were only the usual height above the ground. Both sides of the Canal, it should be added, have been similarly raised by excavation material. It was planned that the ships from the Doullut & Williams yard should be sent out into the world through Lake Pontchartrain, which empties into the Gulf of Mexico. There was ample water in the lake, without dredging, to accommodate unloaded ships of this size. But the fact that ships 400 or so feet long and drawing, when loaded to capacity, 27 feet, were to be built at New Orleans, emphasized the belief of those directing the work of the Industrial Canal that the plan on which they were working was too small. An 18-foot canal would not meet the growing needs of New Orleans. Accordingly the Dock Board instructed the engineering department to expand the plans. By June 11, 1918, the plans had been revised to give a 25-foot channel. This would accommodate all but the largest ships that come to New Orleans. The cost of such a lock and canal, George M. Wells estimated, would be $6,000,000, or $2,500,000 more than the estimate for the original canal. The Levee Board promptly raised its ante to $250,000 to guarantee the interest. When the Dock Board floated the first bond issue of $3,500,000 in February, at 95, it reserved the option to issue another $1,000,000 of bonds within thirty days, at the same rate. For $1,500,000 of the new issue, the same syndicate of banks offered 97-1/2, or two and a half points higher than for the first; but for the other million, they held the board to the original rate of 95. President Thompson reported to the Dock Board June 11 that he considered these "very satisfactory terms." He added: "We were able to secure these better prices and conditions because the bond market is in a somewhat better condition now than it was when we made the original contract." The contract was accepted on that date, and application made to the Capital Issues Committee for the necessary permission. This was given in due time, though there was considerable opposition. The opposition, said President Thompson, at the Dock Board meeting of February 26, 1919, reviewing the development of the canal plans, "was inspired by vicious and spectacular attacks of certain private interests hostile to the canal project and to the port of New Orleans." Railroads, whose right of way crossed the Canal, were the principal propagandists. They realized that the Dock Board could not be required to build their bridges over the waterway, and although the Thompson board financed the work at the time, they knew that sooner or later would come a day of reckoning. The Hudson Board has since then taken steps to collect several million dollars from these roads. But why build a canal almost large enough, only? Why build a 25-foot lock when ships drawing 30-feet of water come to New Orleans? A lock cannot be enlarged, once it is completed--and the tendency of the times is towards larger ships. Why not make a capacity facility while they were about it? [Illustration: LOCK SITE Driving Sheet Piling] [Illustration: LOCK SITE Dredges Entering] These were questions the Dock Board asked itself, and on June 29, 1918, it decided to build the lock with a 30-foot depth over the sill at extreme low water, and make the canal 300 feet wide at the top, and 150 feet wide at the bottom. To do this, would cost about $1,000,000 more, it was estimated by George M. Wells of the Goethals company--a sum which the Dock Board thought would be realized from the rental-revenues of Doullut & Williams and the Foundation Company, without increasing the second bond issue. This is the Canal that was finally built--nearly 70 per cent larger than the one that was begun and about 100 per cent larger than the one originally planned, when the newspapers and forward-looking told the people that the lack of such a canal had cost New Orleans millions of dollars in development. DIGGING THE DITCH. No rock-problem was encountered in dredging the canal. The cost was below what the engineers estimated it would be--less than thirty cents a cubic yard. But a novel situation did develop; a condition that would have sent the cost sky-rocketing if an Orleanian had not met the difficulty. Louisiana is what geologists call a region of subsidence. The gulf of Mexico formerly reached to where Cairo, Ill., now is. Washings from the land, during the slow-moving centuries, pushed the shoreline ever outward; the humus of decaying vegetation raised the ground surface still higher. This section of Louisiana, built by the silt of the Mississippi, was of course the most recent formation. Twenty thousand years ago, say the geologists, there were great forests where Louisiana now is. Among these mighty trees roamed the glyptodont; the 16-foot armadillo with a tail like the morning-star of the old crusaders, monstrously magnified; the giraffe camel; the titanothere; the Columbian elephant, about the size of a trolley car and with 15-foot tusks; the giant sloth which could look into a second-story window; here the saber-toothed tiger fought with the megatherium; mighty rhinoceroses sloshed their clumsy way, and huge and grotesque birds filled the air with their flappings. As the subsoil packed more solidly, this wilderness in time sunk beneath the waters. The Mississippi built up its sandbars again, storms shaped them above the waves, marsh grass raised the surface with its humus, and another forest grew. This, in turn, sunk. And so the process was repeated, time after time. At different depths below the surface of the ground the remains of these forests are found today, the wood perfectly preserved by the dampness. And through this tangled mass the dredges had to fight their way. It was a task too great for the ordinary type of 20 or 22-inch suction dredge, even with the strength of 1,000 horses behind it. When they met these giant stumps and trunks they just stopped. A. B. Wood, of the sewerage and water department, had already designed and patented a centrifugal pump impeller adapted to the handling of sewerage containing trash. Learning of this, W. J. White, superintendent of dredging on the Canal, asked him to design a special impeller, along similar lines, for the dredge Texas. Results from the invention were remarkable. During the thirty days immediately preceding the installation the dredge had suffered delays from clogged suction which totalled 130-3/4 hours. During the thirty days immediately succeeding installation the total of delays for the same reason was cut down to 71-1/2 hours. The average yardage was, for the earlier period, 152 an hour, of actual excavation; and for the later period, 445 an hour--an increase of almost 200 per cent. The situation had been met. This was the period when the cost of labor and material began to jump. Employers were bidding against each other for men, and the government's work practically fixed the price of supplies. George M. Wells, consulting engineer, in his report of December 9, 1918, to the Dock Board, summarized labor increases over the scale when the work was begun, as follows: Unskilled labor, 54%; pile driver men, 40%; machinists, 40%; blacksmiths, 40%; foremen and monthly, 15 to 40%--an average increase of 40%. Materials had advanced, he went on to show, as follows: Gravel, 72%; sand, 25%; cement, 10%; lumber (form), 70%; timber, 40%; piles, untreated, 40%; piles, treated, 25%. These increases, together with the expansion of the plans requiring a canal of maximum depth, instead of the pilot cut of fifteen feet, as originally planned; the insistence of the Levee Board that levees in the back areas must be raised to elevation 30; development of unforeseen and unforeseeable quicksand conditions in the various excavations; requirements of railroads for bridges of greater capacity and strength than needed; building of a power line to the Foundation Company's plant--not a Dock Board job, but one that the conditions required it should finance then; and other expenses, besides delaying the work, made another bond issue necessary to finish the job. At its meeting of February 26, 1919, President Thompson laid the matter before the board. It decided to issue $6,000,000 of bonds, for which the same syndicate of bankers that had taken the other two offered 96. Liberty bonds were then selling at a big discount, and this seemed the best terms on which the money could be secured. This gave a total issue of $12,000,000 to date, the interest on which amounted to $600,000 a year. The Levee Board raised its share of the "rental" to $550,000, to guarantee the interest; the Public Belt Railroad's $50,000 made the total complete. In the meantime ships were beginning to bulk large on the ways of the Foundation and the Doullut & Williams yards. The Foundation company launched its first, the Gauchy--a 4,200-ton non-sinkable steel ship, built for the French government--in September, 1919; and the Doullut & Williams company launched its first, the New Orleans, a steel vessel of 9,600 tons, the largest turned out south of Newport News, built for the Shipping Board, in January, 1920. These were followed by four sister vessels from the Foundation yard and seven from the Doullut & Williams plant. The former went to sea through Bayou Bienvenu and the latter through Lake Pontchartrain. The Doullut & Williams yard is a large one. Originally planning a mere assembling yard, the Foundation Company had subsequently developed the greatest steel fabricating plant in the South--so confident it was that New Orleans would carry through the project. And, too, the New Orleans Army Supply Base that Uncle Sam was building on the river end of the Industrial Canal was rapidly rising--the facility that was to double the port storage capacity of New Orleans when it was finally completed in June, 1919. The canal is 5-1/3 miles long. Between river and lock the canal prism will be 125 feet wide at the bottom and 275 feet at the top; between the lock and the lake, 150 feet wide at the bottom and 300 feet wide at the top. It is an excavation job of 10,000,000 cubic yards. Five hundred thousand flat cars would be required to carry that dirt--a train more than 4,000 miles long. By September, 1919, the canal had been entirely dredged, except for the 2,000-foot channel between the lock and river, which must be left until the last, to a width of about 150 feet and a depth of 26 feet. Since then, the labor has been concentrated upon the lock. But twenty-six feet will float a vessel carrying 6,000 bales of cotton. Full dimensions, however, will be developed, and the Canal, with a system of laterals and basins such as are found in Europe, will be an Inner Harbor capable of indefinite expansion. OVERWHELMING ENDORSEMENT BY NEW ORLEANS. When the Canal was about half finished it received the most tremendous endorsement by every interest of New Orleans in its history. The question was put squarely before the people: "Do you think it is a good thing, and you are willing to be taxed to put it across, and, if so, how much?" And the answer came without hesitation: "It is absolutely necessary to the industrial progress of the city. We must have the Canal at all costs, and are willing to be taxed any amount for it." On September 24, 1919, George M. Wells, consulting engineer, made a report to the Dock Board, showing that the last bond issue of $6,000,000 had been exhausted, and about $5,000,000 more was needed to finish the Canal. This was in the last days of the Thompson Board, and it took no action. The Hudson board entered upon its duties October 2. It comprised William O. Hudson, president; William A. Kernaghan, René F. Clerc, Albert Mackie, Thomas H. Roberts. Later, Mr. Roberts resigned and Hugh McCloskey took his place. All are sound business men, with the interests of the port at heart. They found, in the bank, only $2,067,845.37 to the Industrial Canal Account. After deducting the obligations already made there was left only $112,064.43 to continue the work. Without a public expression from New Orleans they were unwilling to incur the responsibility of issuing $5,000,000 more bonds. President Hudson called a series of meetings of the representative interests of the city to decide what was to be done. As the people of New Orleans had decided to begin the Canal in the first place, it was only right that they should determine whether the undertaking, costing five times as much as the original plan, should be carried through. The governor, the mayor, presidents of banks, committees of commercial exchanges, the president of the Public Belt Railroad, the president of the Levee Board, newspaper publishers, labor leaders and prominent business men were invited. Likewise, a general call was made to the community at large to express an opinion as to finishing the Canal. At the meeting of October 17 the city made its answer. President Hudson outlined the attitude of the Dock Board as follows: "The board has no feeling of prejudice against the completion of the Canal. We are in favor of it. We are anxious to complete it. It was fostered by the citizens of New Orleans. "The floating of the bond issue is a simple matter, if you men think we ought to do it; but where is the money for meeting the interest to come from? The $600,000 interest on bonds now outstanding is being paid, $550,000 by the Levee Board, and $50,000 by the Public Belt Railroad. The Public Belt's share is paid from its earnings; but the Levee Board's share is being paid by direct taxation on the citizens of New Orleans. Must we increase that tax? I personally won't object to any taxation as a citizen to pay my part towards financing the Canal." "I want to see the canal completed," said Governor Pleasant. "But it is up to the people of New Orleans to say whether they are willing to assume the added obligation." R. S. Hecht, president of the Hibernia Bank, and a recognized financial leader in New Orleans, then arose. "I feel," he said, "that all who have the future of New Orleans at heart must agree that we are here to discuss not whether the Canal is to be finished, but how. "Finished it must be, or our commercial future will be doomed for many years. If the Dock Board were to stop the work, it would forever kill its credit for any other bond issue that might be proposed for wharf development, new warehouses, or anything else. "The cost of the canal is a surprise to
{'title': 'The Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor of New Orleans by Thomas Ewing Dabney', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}