Florida’s Big Dig

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

Tag: Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway

  • The “Steamboat “Saint Lucie” tied up at the Rock Ledge (Rockledge) Landing.

  • Gregg Russell concert for young and old at the Oak Tree, Harbour Town Marina, Sea Pines Plantation, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, opening into Calibogue Sound (a section of the Intracoastal Waterway).  Russell has brought his troubadour-style folk singing and story-telling to  Harbour Town for over 25 years, attracting hundreds of residents and tourists, some…

  • Our literate cat Whiskers peaks over the top of a book stand to view my award-winning book, “Florida’s Big Dig: the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway from Jacksonville to Miami, 1881 to 1935.” Winner of the Rembert Patrick Award in 2008, my book tells the story of how a privately built tollway barely five feet deep in…

  • Harbortown Lighthouse, Sea Pines Plantation, Hilton Head, South Carolina. Harbor leads out into Calibogue Sound, a part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.

  • 1889 sketch of Lake Boca Raton by civil engineer Arthur Wrotnowski’s illustrating a survey for the construction of an inland waterway from St. Augustine to ‘Cocoa-nut Grove’, Fla., made by Chicago railway and inland waterway engineer Elmer C. Corthell. The survey was made to induce George Bradley and other wealthy investors to join in the…

  • Group of Road Scholars on tour of the Intracoastal Waterway in Fort Lauderdale led by Lawyer/Historian Bill Crawford. To amplify voice and screen out boat noise, I wore a head set and a microphone while the ‘Scholars’ wore adjustable ear buds to increase/decrease sound as needed. In the distance is the relatively recent E. Clay…

  • Brigadier General Quincy Adams Gillmore, Second Florida chief of the Army Corps of Engineers. Gillmore graduated first in his class at West Point. He conducted several surveys of the Florida east coast during his command (1869-1884). In later years, Gillmore published several textbooks, including one on underwater concrete, a necessity in waterway and canal improvements.…

  • For some time, there has been much debate over where the northern terminus of the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) might be located. When I appeared as the “waterway expert” on the Modern Marvels documentary “Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway” shown on the History Channel, the writer/producer contended as many still do, that the AIW begins in Miami and…

  • 1959 Gold Coast Marathon on the Intracoastal Waterway Russell Fraser, Jr., racing an outboard motorboat in the 1959 Gold Coast Marathon on the Intracoastal Waterway between Miami and West Palm Beach and the return to Miami the next day. Some hydroplanes among the scores of boats of every class reached speeds approaching a hundred miles…

  • Horatio G. Wright was the first Florida chief of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (1852-1854). Wright superintended the first cut in what would become the Florida section of the Intracoastal Waterway, joining the Matanzas and Halifax rivers at Titusville, Fla. After years of wrangling over Congress’s constitutional powers, Congress authorized a mere pittance of $1,200…