Florida’s Big Dig

The story of the Intracoastal and other thoughts on water, waterways, land, and ecology

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about

I am Bill Crawford. I was born and raised in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., bisected by the Intracoastal. I graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelor’s degree in commerce, with distinction, concentrating in finance. I obtained my juris doctor degree from Stetson University College of Law. I have practiced law for more than 43 years. I am a professional historian and author of the award-winning book, “Florida’s Big Dig,” (2008) the story of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. I have practiced law in Florida since 1975. Along the way, I developed a keen interest in researching and writing history, publishing numerous scholarly journal articles and one award-winning book, “Florida’s Big Dig,” the story of Florida’s Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, using my legal pbackground to understand legal transactions, deeds, wmortgages, bonds, preferred stock, and legal descriptions of land and water. In recent years, I have maintained a limited practice consulting with other professionals on various historical land and water issues, including sovereign, riparian, and submerged land rights, focusing on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and Florida inland waterways. I maintain a broad regular website here at www.floridasbigdig.me and a website solely on how the book was researched as well as some of the major themes explored. The website on the book itself is at www.floridasbigdig.com. The website on contacts for professional services is at www.floridasbigdiglawyer.com?. A fifteen-page outline of my book

Category: Atlantic Deeper Waterways Association

  • Author to be interviewed by Book TV C-SPAN 2, Tuesday, April 21,2015

    William G. Crawford, Jr., author of the award-winning “Florida’s Big Dig,” is to be interviewed by Jason Dorman, a graduate of Flagler College, for C-SPAN 2 Book TV. The interview is to air the month of May, with a special emphasis on a showing throughout the weekend of May 16 through May 17, 2015. The…

  • Hillsboro Inlet Lighthouse (built 1903)

    This photo shows the lighthouse on the north side of the inlet, Intracoastal continues north between Town of Hillsboro Beach to the right and the City of Lighthouse Point to the left of the ICW.

  • Celebrating Thanksgiving Aboard Union Ironclads, James River, 1864

    Originally posted on Irish in the American Civil War: In November 1864 a number of Union Ironclads were to be found on the James River in Virginia, supporting Federal ground operations there. A large number of the men on board the vessels of the James River Flotilla were Irish; indeed they made up an estimated…

  • The Atlantic Deeper Waterways Association and Congressman J. Hampton Moore

    At the turn of the last century (1895-1920s), something of a renaissance occurred in the political will of the Nation in the demand for inland waterway transportation.  More than thirty citizens groups coalesced from all over the country to demand waterway construction to challenge not only the confiscatory tariffs charged by the railways but also…

  • Commodore Avylen Harcourt Brook (1866-1946)

    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…

  • 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” Harding

    Owned by Commodore Avylen Harcourt Brook, the sloop Klyo “rescued” President-elect Warren G. Harding (in white pants, waving the hat) when the houseboat in which he had cruised hit a “snag” on the poorly maintained–and privately owned–Florida East Coast Canal (after 1929, the Intracoastal Waterway) at Fort Lauderdale in 1921. Born in Sheffield, England, in…

  • Even Whiskers loves the book, Florida’s Big Dig

    Even Whiskers loves the book, Florida’s Big Dig

    In this first comprehensive study of the Florida section of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, I trace the roots of the waterway all the way back to the Founding Fathers, through the history of the Canal Era and its difficult path in Congress and in Florida’s young legislature as one of the early public-private partnerships, drawing…