Louisville and Portland Canal

Coordinates: 38°16′18″N 85°46′46″W / 38.27170°N 85.77940°W / 38.27170; -85.77940
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Louisville and Portland Canal
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
History
Original ownerLouisville and Portland Canal Company
Date of first use1830
Geography
Connects toOhio River

The Louisville and Portland Canal was a 2-mile (3.2 km) canal bypassing

federal government
, which had invested heavily in its construction, maintenance, and improvement.

The Louisville and Portland Canal was renamed as the McAlpine Locks and Dam in 1962 after extensive modernization.[2] The name "Louisville and Portland Canal" (or simply "Portland Canal") is still used to refer to the canal itself, which runs between the Kentucky bank and Shippingport Island from about 10th Street down to the locks at 27th Street.

The canal was the first major improvement to be completed on a

major river of the United States.[3]

History

See also:
History of U.S. canals

Background

The

Falls of the Ohio are the only natural obstruction to riverine traffic from the source of the Ohio at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to the Gulf of Mexico. Some of the earliest cities in Kentucky – Louisville, Portland, and Shippingport – developed from the need for portage of cargo around the rapids, except during a few weeks each spring when water on the river was very high. Although this source of income was popular with locals, merchants invested upriver – particularly those in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Cincinnati[1] – disliked the expense and hassle. The situation caused wide fluctuations in prices up- and downstream, as there was always a glut of shipments during the few weeks of high water each year.[4]

Thomas Hutchins's 1778 map of the rapids

The first meeting of the trustees of the Town of Louisville on February 7, 1781, adopted a petition to the Virginia General Assembly for the right to construct a canal around the falls.[1] Two years later, engineer and canal advocate Christopher Colles petitioned the Congress of the Confederation, promising to start a canal company in exchange for a grant comprising the necessary land. They declined.[5]

Serious plans for a canal circulated throughout the early 1800s, with

William Lytle II, founder of Cincinnati, laid out Portland in 1811 and sold lots in order to finance his own canal project. The Indiana Canal Company, that state's second effort, was chartered in 1818 and made preliminary excavations using private and state funds. The failure of a dam and the Panic of 1819 ended the attempt.[6] Rumors that the Indiana dam had been sabotaged arose from the risk a canal posed to much of Louisville's economy, including not only forwarding, storage, drayage, and shipping but also provisioning, financing, hotels, and entertainment. Against this, however, some locals argued for the benefit a canal would provide to local manufacturing.[1]

Privately held company

The route of the Louisville and Portland Canal in the 1850s.

Despite the completion of the federally funded

$300,000.[8]

The company was chartered in 1825. Its initial members included

Philadelphia investors.[1] This private, out-of-state ownership was praised at the time by Louisville's leading newspaper, the Public Advertiser, which said "no one is now apprehensive of any imprudent or unjust action on the part of the Legislature". In May 1826, the United States Congress voted to purchase 1,000 shares as well.[8]

Construction began in 1826. As it became evident that the canal would have to be dug through solid rock, the cost estimate rose past $375,000, with two years of construction required. Local investors were the first to learn of the difficulties; several defaulted on further payment towards their shares, reducing the company's available capital. Abraham Lincoln is said to have worked on the construction of the canal in 1827.

Pres. Andrew Jackson, who denounced the practice of giving federal funds to private corporations. The company was forced to borrow $154,000 in 1830. By this time, the stock was valued at over $1,000,000, of which the federal government held $290,000.[8]

The first ship – the SS

plantations increased demand for produce and goods from the north.[1] The canal increased its prices to 40¢ per ton in 1834 and to 60¢ per ton in 1837 and still saw traffic increase from 170,000 tons in 1834 to 300,000 in 1839; the company's thirteenth annual report from 1837 noted that canal toll receipts had increased from $12,750.77 in 1831 to $145,424.69 in 1837.[8][11] At the same time, Louisville's "carrying trade" also increased to a greater volume than before[1] and a line of the Lexington and Ohio Railroad
was constructed beside the canal from Louisville to Portland in 1838.

The company's high tolls and disinterest in improving the canal either to enlarge it or to correct the lower end, which opened into a narrow part of the river with a swift current, provoked dissatisfaction among its customers. Ohioan and Pennsylvanian opposition in Congress sometimes passed bills in the Senate approving a full buyout of the company, but such bills were consistently defeated in the House by Kentuckians,

Hoosier representatives, who still hoped to build their own canal as late as 1842.[12] The company's management opted to solve the problem on their own: instead of funding expansions, improvements, or dividends, profits from the canal were used to purchase privately held shares at a premium, gradually increasing the government's ownership stake. Despite the succession of long depressions set off in 1837 and 1843 and a reduction of the toll to 50¢ per ton in 1842, the company remained highly profitable, and the buyout was completed in 1855.[12]

Government-acquired corporation

Union
troops arrive at Louisville in 1862.

By the 1850s, around 40% of the steamboats on the Ohio were too large for the canal and required transshipment of their cargo around the Falls.

Sen. Lazarus Powell (D-KY) was of the opinion that "the only reason why the government of the United States has not long taken charge of the canal, is the fear that there would be demand on the national treasury to Enlarge it", a reasonable fear given the reasons for the buyout of the original owners.[13]

The 1863 home of Enoch Lockhart, the first canal superintendent, commanding a direct view of the works.[14]

In the end, the government simply directed the company to finance the needful improvements on its own. A $865,000 plan was approved and undertaken in 1860 but was almost immediately shelved by the

Union
control of the state rendered the threat moot. The loans involved in the original plan, however, meant that the company was $1.6 million in debt by 1866.

Radical Republican control of Congress meant that the Army Corps of Engineers
was finally allowed to take over improvements for the canal in 1867. Two new locks, each 390 feet (120 m) long and 90 feet (27 m) wide, opened in February 1872.

Government control

In May 1874, Congress passed a bill allowing the Corps of Engineers to take full control of the canal and authorizing the

railroads, traffic on the canal had tripled from any previous level.[16] This was mostly heavy, low-value industrial supplies such as coal, salt, and iron ore. In 1880, under political pressure from upriver producers, Congress removed the canal's tolls entirely, forgoing profit and paying the entirety of its expenses from the Treasury.[17]

A new lock was built in 1921 as a part of Congress's plan for the "canalization" of the Ohio River. Further expansions in 1962, increasing the width of the canal to 500 feet (150 m), caused the canal to be known as the McAlpine Locks and Dam.[18]

Economic impact

In the 19th century, the high toll and insufficient capacity of the canal served Louisville well, permitting high profits for shareholders without greatly curtailing the portage and related sectors of the local economy. The gradual buyout well-compensated the owners for their initial investments in the venture.

Louisville boomed at the expense of its onetime partners

1945. Shippingport, included within Louisville's borders during its 1828 incorporation and enisled by the canal, declined slowly until the government bought out the remaining families in 1958.[19]

At the same time, these factors blunted the economic impact of the canal on other communities up- and downstream. Although (even at its highest tolls) the canal decreased the freight rate along the river, it did not permit significantly lower prices in commodities, which fell at a faster rate in the 25 years before the canal opened than they did in the 25 years afterwards.[3] The 1850s and 1860s particularly saw usage of the canal merely plateau despite booming growth in river traffic.[8]

The east entrance to the Portland Canal.

See also

  • Indiana Canal Company
  • McAlpine Locks and Dam
  • steamboats of the Mississippi
  • Johnson, Leland R.; Parrish, Charles E. (2007). Triumph at the Falls: The Louisville and Portland Canal (PDF). Louisville, Kentucky: Louisville District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Retrieved 18 April 2017.
  • "Ohio River Locks at Louisville". Engineering News. 70 (25): 1238–1244. December 18, 1913. Retrieved 18 April 2017.
  • "One Huge Single-Lift Lock at Louisville Will Guard the Entrance to the Portland Canal". Engineering Record. 71 (26): 794–796. June 26, 1915. Retrieved 18 April 2017.
  • "Direct-Lift Span Provides 55-Foot Clearance Over Louisville and Portland Canal". Engineering Record. 72 (7): 199, 200. August 14, 1915. Retrieved 18 April 2017.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Yater, George. The Encyclopedia of Louisville, p. 531. "Louisville and Portland Canal". University Press of Kentucky (Lexington), 2001. Accessed 9 October 2013.
  2. JSTOR 1886603
    ..
  3. ^ a b Trescott, 694.
  4. ^ Trescott, 686-687.
  5. ^ Hulbert, Archer Butler, ed. (1918). "XVIII Colles' Petition to Improve Ohio River Navigation (1783)". Ohio in the Time of the Confederation. Marietta College Historical Collections. Vol. 3. Marietta, Ohio: Marietta Historical Commission. pp. 92–94..
  6. ^ a b Trescott, 687.
  7. ^ Trescott, 687-688.
  8. ^ a b c d e f Trescott, 688 ff.
  9. ^ a b Johnson, Leland & al.Triumph at the Falls: The Louisville and Portland Canal, pp. 30 ff. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Louisville), 2007.
  10. ^ The Real Lincoln: a Portrait. Houghton Mifflin. 1922. p. 25. Retrieved 30 July 2010..
  11. ^ "H. Doc. 25-104 - Thirteenth Annual Report of the President and Directors of the Louisville and Portland Canal Company. December 30, 1837". GovInfo.gov. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 2. Retrieved 26 June 2023.
  12. ^ a b Trescott, 695 ff.
  13. ^ Trescott, 700-701.
  14. ^ "History of the Kentucky & Indiana Terminal Railroad". Retrieved 24 May 2007..
  15. ^ United States Army Corps of Engineers. Civil War Engineering and Navigation Archived 2004-07-25 at the Wayback Machine.
  16. ^ Trescott, 702-706.
  17. ^ Trescott, 706 f.
  18. ^ The Falls City Engineers: A History of the Louisville District. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. 1975..
  19. ^ Burnett, Robert A. (April 1976). "Louisville's French Past". Filson Club History Quarterly: 9–18..
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