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 Intracoastal Waterway

  • 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…

  • Back to the future: the Chesapeake and Delaware River Canal

    Completed in 1829 during the first great Canal Era when arguments over Constitutional restraints kept Congress from using Federal taxpayer money to fund inland waterway construction, a private company completed the 17-mile waterway between the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays. The original waterway was a tollway ten feet deep and sixty-six feet wide, with a boat…

  • Back to the future: The Great Dismal Swamp Canal

    The oldest working canal still in existence, the Dismal Swamp Canal transits through naturalistic views of North Carolina and Virginia. This short video captures a history of the waterway three centuries long, beginning with some of the founders of the Nation making plans for a waterway between North Carolina and Virginia. [Tap the following to…

  • Watermelon Feast on East Coast Canal (Under Construction) at Boynton Beach, Fla. In 1914

    By November 1912, according to the terms and conditions of the Settlement Agreement made in 1906, the last of twelve deeds had been delivered by the State of Florida Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund (the State Cabinet) to the Florida canal company conveying in the aggregate more than one million acres of prime east…

  • 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…

  • 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]…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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).  …

  • 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…