Commodore Avylen Harcourt Brook was born in Sheffield, England, in 1866 into a family of silver and bronze electroplaters. His early education was in England. Brook studied art under the famous English artist and critic John Ruskin. It was said that one of his 'parlor tricks' was to paint two paintings simultaneously, one with his [...]
Month: August 2014
Corthell’s 1889 Estimate of the Cost to Complete the Florida East Coast Canal
In 1888, Florida canal company general manager George F. Miles engaged acclaimed Chicago waterway and railway engineer Elmer Corthell to survey the soil, rock, sand, and other material the Company dredges would likely encounter in completing the waterway and to estimate the cost of completion.In turn, Corthell employed a former Army engineer, Artur [sic] Wrotnowski, [...]
Sketch of Lake Boca Raton, Florida (1889)
Sketch of survey of Lake Boca Raton, Boca Raton, Florida, made by Arthur Wrotnowski, Civil Engineer, for a Report on the Florida East Coast Canal (Intracoastal Waterway) from Jacksonville to Miami, Florida in 1889 by Elmer Corthell of Chicago, Illinois. The report was undertaken to encourage New England investors like Bradley and Albert P. Sawyer [...]
General Quincy Adams Gillmore — Florida chief of the Corps of Engineers
Unlike the Federalists who believed that the Constitution authorized a full-time standing army, the nation's third president Thomas Jefferson signed into law the Military Peace Establishment Act (1802). The Act founded the U. S. Military Academy at West Point to train engineers skilled in surveying and planning military roads, inland waterways and constructing bridges, harbors, [...]
Unlike Florida, states like South Carolina must rely on federal funds
Taken at sunset from the Lighthouse Marina at Sea Pines Plantation, one of the largest plantations on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, with several yachts docked awaiting the arrival of more marine vessels for Memorial Day festivities.Beyond the marina, Calibogue Sound is one link in the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and the second largest sound on the [...]
Fares for the Steamboat “Swan” on October 31, 1911
As the 1912 deadline approached for the completion of the Florida waterway, George Francis Miles became increasingly disenchanted with his role as general manager of dredging operations. In 1911, Miles and others organized the Florida Coastal Inland Navigation Company to run steamboats on the completed portions of the inland waterway (Florida East Coast Canal). Shown [...]
First Commissioners of the Florida Inland Navigation District (1928)
Of all the coastal states contributing inland waterways that now make up the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, only the State of Florida was required to buy its waterway for turnover to the federal government free of charge. For example, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was not required to buy the privately owned Cape Cod Canal built by [...]
Commodore Brook rescues President-elect Warren G. Harding on New River Sound
Commodore Brook rescues President-elect Warren G. Harding on New River Sound in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. (1921)
Whiskers Hangin’ Ten…I think.
Whiskers Hangin' Ten...I think..
Florida’s Big Dig 