DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE FLORIDA CANAL


 10-YEAR PERIOD, JANUARY 1927 TO JUNE 1936
By HzNBa HOLLArD BUCKMAx, of Engineering Counsel, the Ship Canal Authority
 of the State of Florida
 The proposal to construct a waterway across Florida which would
obviate the expense and danger attendant upon navigation of the
long route through the Straits of Florida has been considered now
and again for more than a century. President Jackson urged the
construction of such a canal, and since that time it has been, from
time-to time, the subject of examination and inquiry by the Federal
Government. Until recent years the project assumed the form of a
barge canal. Until the growth of ocean shipping into and out of the
Gulf of Mexico increased to a point which appeared to justify the
cost of a ship canal, such surveys and discussions were limited to a
waterway of the barge-canal type because of the smaller dimensions
of a barge canal and other engineering considerations.
 The possible location of a barge canal covered a much wider area
than is the case with a ship canal, and the earlier surveys made by
the Corps of Engineers included the examination of routes whose
eastern termini ranged from the east central coast of Florida to points
on the coast of Georgia. The results of these surveys indicated that
several routes were.feasible for a barge canal, but in no case has the
potential barge traffic been sufficient to warrant the cost of a canal
which would transit only barges. Some time prior to 1925 the devel-
opment of ocean-going traffic through the Straits of Florida had
reached a point where the saving to shipping and ocean-borne com-
merce indicated the justification of the more costly ship canal, which
would also serve for barge traffic. However, engineering considera-
tions governing the construction of a waterway of ship-canal dimen-
sions confined the location of the project to the peninsula of Florida
and eliminated the possibility of a route through both Georgia and
Florida.
 The present phase of this project may be said to have had its begin-
ning in the River and Harbor Act of 1927, providing for a survey by
the Corps of Engineers. Surveys had been made previously, but the
act of 1927 initiated the movement which finally resulted in beginning
construction of the canal. This date, therefore, serves as a convenient
and appropriate dividing line between the earlier and later history of
the project. The present compendium is an attempt to bring together
and intelligently coordinate and explain the documents of public rec-
ord which relate to the canal during the period since that tine. Like
all great projects, the Florida Canal has been the subject of contro-
versy with respect to many of its phases, both economic and political.
The literature is extensive, and much of it of such a partisan nature,