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

Tag: Waterway history

  • 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…

  • 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]…

  • A Ten-Minute Trip Through the Cape Cod Canal

    The purchase of the Cape Cod Canal built by August Belmont was authorized by the same Act of Congress in 1927 that authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to enlarge and perpetually maintain the Florida East Coast Canal.  Like the Cape Cod Canal, the Florida East Coast Canal was privately owned and collected tolls from…

  • Bucket dredge in the Matanzas and Halifax rivers Cut, ca. 1893

    Bucket dredge in the Matanzas -Halifax rivers Cut south of St. Augustine ca. 1893. Large steel buckets attached to a continuous heavy chain scooped up sand, clay, and rocks, and then dumped the material on either side of the Cut via conveyor belts. Among the earliest of the dredges employed, the bucket dredge soon fell…

  • Overlooking Calibogue Sound (ICW) From Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

    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…

  • Lt. Horatio G. Wright, Florida’s first chief of engineers

    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…

  • James Louis Colee (1834-1912)

    Original incorporator and director of the Florida canal company, James Colee (pronounced, ‘Coolee’) served as an engineer in the dredging of the Intracoastal Waterway until his death in 1912. Colee also served as state representative and county commissioner for St. Johns County and was a stockholder in the First National Bank of St. Augustine. In…

  • Dipper Dredge in the Cut near Delray Beach

    Dipper dredge in a difficult “dry” cut near Delray Beach. The dipper dredge used an A-frame for stability. Long posts on the corners were driven into the bottom of what appears to be shallow water. The dipper scooped up the bottom consisting of soil and rock, depositing the spoil on either side and building up…

  • Small tourist steamer in the Jupiter Narrows

    A narrow steamer carrying tourists in the Jupiter Narrows section of what was then called the Florida East Coast Canal (now, Intracoastal Waterway), as the Indian River narrowed down into Lake Worth. In some stretches of the Narrows, steamers of ordinary width stopped and started their way through a brush-lined privately owned tollway in the…