The Junior Historian, Volume 27, Number 4, January 1967 Page: 4
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THE JUNIOR HISTORIAN
Holland and Miller got the ball rolling,
but without the undaunted support of
many nameless persons, their efforts
would have been in vain.
A short time after the third annual
meeting in Houston, survey permits were
obtained. The United States Army Corps
of Engineers then expedited their con-
struction plans, and the project began.
As stated before, only certain segments
of the canal were completed so it was
of no use to the area as a whole, thus
service was restricted to the area of
completion. During the time that the
canal was partially completed, Congress
was reluctant to look at the project in the
aspect of a national inland waterway
system and, as a result, was reluctant to
appropriate federal funds.
In 1920, the name of the organization
was changed to the Intracoastal Canal As-
sociation of Louisiana and Texas in order
to prove to Congress that it was "... an
integral part of the nation's developing
system of navigable waterways." As a
result of the stepped-up program by the
national legislators of Louisiana and
Texas, the River and Harbor Acts of
1925 and 1927 were enacted by Congress.Special credit should be given to Rep-
resentative J. J. Mansfield of Texas who
used his influence as chairman of the
House Ways and Means Committee to
get the legislation passed. The two acts
provided for a canal, nine feet deep by
100 feet wide, extending from the
Mississippi River to Corpus Christi. Thesegments completed prior to these acts
were five feet deep and forty feet wide.
This was the first deepening and widening
campaign. Expansion came not only in
the form of depth and width, but in the
length and tonnage as well.
According to William H. Bauer,
president of the Gulf Intracoastal Canal
Association, and Dale Miller, son of Roy
Miller and executive vice-president of the
association, the budget recommendations
for the fiscal year 1966-1967 are slightly
lower for the nation as a whole because of
the exigencies of the conflict in Viet Nam.
But those for the Gulf Coast Navigation
Projects are slightly higher.
Congress has been an ally of the Gulf
Intercoastal Canal more times than it has
been its adversary. The River and Harbor
Acts of 1925 and 1927 have previously
been mentioned. Just after World War II
began, the Mansfield Dam was enacted. It
provided for increasing the depth of the
canal to twelve feet and widening it to
125 feet. It also provided for the exten-
sion of the canal to the Rio Grande from
Corpus Christi. On June 18, 1949, the
main channel of the canal was completed
to the Rio Grande. The point on the
Rio Grande at which the canal terminates
was named Port Mansfield, in honor of
J. J. Mansfield.
Construction was not only moving
southward but also eastward. The main
channel was extended into Florida. The
Mississippi, which at one time was the
eastern boundary of the canal, was now a
crossroads, bustling with canal traffic.
Expansion of the tributary system was
also starting. The River and Harbor Act
of 1952 authorized a tributary of the main
channel by way of Seadrift to Victoria,
Texas, a point on the Guadalupe River.
This channel to Victoria was previously
authorized by the River and Harbor Act
of 1945. The resultant Victoria barge
canal now provides a sea-level channel
about thirty-five miles in length. It
terminates at a point about 7.5 miles
below Victoria. The Act of 1952 also
provided for a channel to connect Seadrift
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Texas State Historical Association. The Junior Historian, Volume 27, Number 4, January 1967, periodical, January 1967; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth391281/m1/6/?q=%22tex-rev%22: accessed July 8, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.