Florida’s Big Dig
The story of the Intracoastal and other thoughts on water, waterways, land, and ecology
Category: Florida East Coast Canal
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The nation’s third president, Thomas Jefferson, constantly fought Alexander Hamilton, first Treasury Secretary under President George Washington, over Hamilton’s liberal views of the Constitution. Jefferson believed in a strict construction of the Constitution. Adamantly opposed to Hamilton’s support of a standing (permanent) army, Jefferson supported the Military Peace Establishment Act, which founded the U. S.…
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The first dredge used in constructing the Intracoastal Waterway was a crude steel bucket dredge. Each bucket was the size of two average-sized men standing inside. The buckets were attached to a continuous steel chain, powered by steam. First used in the so-called Matanzas-Halifax Cut, the dredge was to join the Matanzas River at St.…
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In 1881, the private St. Augustine-based Florida canal company agreed to dredge an inland waterway from Miami, Fla., to St. Augustine, Fla., and later to Jacksonville, Fla., a distance of approximately 400 miles. For every mile of waterway dredged, state legislators agreed to convey to the canal company 3,840 acres of state-owned land. Upon the…
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Evidence is scant but it appears that State trustees first permitted the private canal company to collect tolls from vessels transiting the inland waterway at various points in 1911. The method of collection was to stretch chains across sections as narrow as fifty feet. When the vessel paid the toll exacted, the toll keeper relaxed…
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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.
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1922 became a key turning point in the history of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway in Florida. First, Charles F. Burgman became the president of the Association of East Coast Chambers of Commerce. By 1922, nearly every local chamber of commerce or board of trade had launched a campaign calling upon the Federal Government to take…
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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…
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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…