Florence Canal

Florence Canal. . The Florence Canal resulted from a desire to tame the shallow and craggy Muscle Shoals. In 1830, amid urgings for a navigable solution, James Kerney of the Board of Engineers for Internal Improvements completed plans for a thirty-five-mile canal through the Muscle Shoals. More than six hundred men, including enslaved laborers hired from the local plantation owners, worked on the project. The canal opened for operations in July 1837, but with unsatisfactory results. The Shoals, leaving the little Muscle Shoals and Elk River Shoals unnavigable. Additionally, canal commissioners had failed to construct culverts diverting water flow from adjoining tributaries, which gradually led to sediment buildup and left the canals useless., As part of a renewed motivation to extend national trade routes via river travel, the United States Army Corps of Engineers began construction another canal in 1875. After nearly two decades of work, several changes in leadership, and slow progress altogether, Goerge Washington Goethals and his men completed the job on November 8, 1890. The finished project was a sixteen-mile segment of three individual canals forming a single passage. A one-and-a-half-mile canal with two locks bypassed the Elk River Shoals. Further along, a much larger fourteen-mile canal with nine locks was cut through the Big Muscle Shoals. Engineers completed the final canal by dredging a channel through the Little Muscle Shoals and building two wing dams along either side other constrict water flow. The resulting canal system fueled industrial growth in the Shoals region., Captions , (Photo #1) This image depicts the upper end of Lock No. 4 under construction. The canal used several locks to lift vessels above the Muscle Shoals. (Courtesy of the University of North Alabama, Collier Library Archives and Special Collections) , (Photo #2) In this image, a steamer and a barge traverse the canal after it has opened to river traffic in the 1890s. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers maintained a railroad along the channel after it opened. (Courtesy of the University of North Alabama, Collier Library Archives and Special Collections) , (Photo #3) Before the 1890s, the shallow and jagged shoals made river travel almost impossible when water levels were low. This 19th-century map of a portion of the Muscle Shoals Canal illustrates the issue posed by the shoals. (Courtesy of the University of North Alabama, Collier Library Archives and Special Collections) , (Photo #4) In this photograph, a steamer locks through the Muscle Shoals Canal. Two men manually operate the lock mechanism on the flanks. (Courtesy of the University of North Alabama, Collier Library Archives and Special Collections) , (Photo #5) This photo shows the completed upper end of Lock No. 4 on the Muscle Shoals Canal. Railroad tracks run along the side of the lock. (Courtesy of the University of North Alabama, Collier Library Archives and Special Collections)