Bucket, continuous chain dredge in the Matanzas-Halifax cut

In 1882, the Florida Coast Line Canal & Transportation Company (“the Florida canal company”) began dredging the difficult dry cut between the Matanzas and Halifax rivers using bucket, continuous chain dredges. The Florida canal company would not complete the work until 1912, thirty years later. For dredging what would become the Intracoastal Waterway from Jacksonville to Miami, the company would earn over one million acres of state land for dredging 268 miles of waterway and the right to collect tolls from waterway traffic. Courtesy, St. Augustine Historical Society.