The Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor of New Orleans Part 3

Originally planning a mere a.s.sembling yard, the Foundation Company had subsequently developed the greatest steel fabricating plant in the South--so confident it was that New Orleans would carry through the project.

And, too, the New Orleans Army Supply Base that Uncle Sam was building on the river end of the Industrial Ca.n.a.l was rapidly rising--the facility that was to double the port storage capacity of New Orleans when it was finally completed in June, 1919.

The ca.n.a.l is 5-1/3 miles long. Between river and lock the ca.n.a.l prism will be 125 feet wide at the bottom and 275 feet at the top; between the lock and the lake, 150 feet wide at the bottom and 300 feet wide at the top. It is an excavation job of 10,000,000 cubic yards. Five hundred thousand flat cars would be required to carry that dirt--a train more than 4,000 miles long.

By September, 1919, the ca.n.a.l had been entirely dredged, except for the 2,000-foot channel between the lock and river, which must be left until the last, to a width of about 150 feet and a depth of 26 feet. Since then, the labor has been concentrated upon the lock. But twenty-six feet will float a vessel carrying 6,000 bales of cotton. Full dimensions, however, will be developed, and the Ca.n.a.l, with a system of laterals and basins such as are found in Europe, will be an Inner Harbor capable of indefinite expansion.

OVERWHELMING ENDORs.e.m.e.nT BY NEW ORLEANS.

When the Ca.n.a.l was about half finished it received the most tremendous endors.e.m.e.nt by every interest of New Orleans in its history. The question was put squarely before the people: "Do you think it is a good thing, and you are willing to be taxed to put it across, and, if so, how much?" And the answer came without hesitation: "It is absolutely necessary to the industrial progress of the city. We must have the Ca.n.a.l at all costs, and are willing to be taxed any amount for it."

On September 24, 1919, George M. Wells, consulting engineer, made a report to the Dock Board, showing that the last bond issue of $6,000,000 had been exhausted, and about $5,000,000 more was needed to finish the Ca.n.a.l.

This was in the last days of the Thompson Board, and it took no action.

The Hudson board entered upon its duties October 2. It comprised William O. Hudson, president; William A. Kernaghan, Rene F. Clerc, Albert Mackie, Thomas H. Roberts. Later, Mr. Roberts resigned and Hugh McCloskey took his place. All are sound business men, with the interests of the port at heart.

They found, in the bank, only $2,067,845.37 to the Industrial Ca.n.a.l Account. After deducting the obligations already made there was left only $112,064.43 to continue the work. Without a public expression from New Orleans they were unwilling to incur the responsibility of issuing $5,000,000 more bonds.

President Hudson called a series of meetings of the representative interests of the city to decide what was to be done. As the people of New Orleans had decided to begin the Ca.n.a.l in the first place, it was only right that they should determine whether the undertaking, costing five times as much as the original plan, should be carried through.

The governor, the mayor, presidents of banks, committees of commercial exchanges, the president of the Public Belt Railroad, the president of the Levee Board, newspaper publishers, labor leaders and prominent business men were invited. Likewise, a general call was made to the community at large to express an opinion as to finis.h.i.+ng the Ca.n.a.l.

At the meeting of October 17 the city made its answer.

President Hudson outlined the att.i.tude of the Dock Board as follows:

"The board has no feeling of prejudice against the completion of the Ca.n.a.l. We are in favor of it. We are anxious to complete it. It was fostered by the citizens of New Orleans.

"The floating of the bond issue is a simple matter, if you men think we ought to do it; but where is the money for meeting the interest to come from? The $600,000 interest on bonds now outstanding is being paid, $550,000 by the Levee Board, and $50,000 by the Public Belt Railroad.

The Public Belt's share is paid from its earnings; but the Levee Board's share is being paid by direct taxation on the citizens of New Orleans. Must we increase that tax? I personally won't object to any taxation as a citizen to pay my part towards financing the Ca.n.a.l."

"I want to see the ca.n.a.l completed," said Governor Pleasant. "But it is up to the people of New Orleans to say whether they are willing to a.s.sume the added obligation."

R. S. Hecht, president of the Hibernia Bank, and a recognized financial leader in New Orleans, then arose.

"I feel," he said, "that all who have the future of New Orleans at heart must agree that we are here to discuss not whether the Ca.n.a.l is to be finished, but how.

"Finished it must be, or our commercial future will be doomed for many years. If the Dock Board were to stop the work, it would forever kill its credit for any other bond issue that might be proposed for wharf development, new warehouses, or anything else.

"The cost of the ca.n.a.l is a surprise to everybody. I was present when the cost was originally estimated at $3,500,000 with a leeway of $1,000,000. I said then, and I repeat now, that the ca.n.a.l could be financed if the people of New Orleans stood squarely behind it.

"The cotton warehouse and the grain elevator cost a great deal more than the original estimates. So the Industrial Ca.n.a.l, though it is costing more than antic.i.p.ated, because of the increased cost of material and labor and the increased size in the Ca.n.a.l, will, I feel sure, be justified by the development of the future.

"Are we to be taxed for fifty years for our investment of $12,000,000 and get no return, or are we willing to pay a little bit more and get something worth while?"

That expressed the sentiment of the meeting.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUILDING THE LOCK]

"The people of New Orleans," said Hugh McCloskey, financier and dean of all Dock Board presidents, "have never failed to meet a crisis. It is the duty of the Dock Board to finish the Ca.n.a.l, no matter what the doubting Thomases may say."

Similar expressions were made by Thomas Killeen, president of the Levee Board; Thomas Cunningham, of the Public Belt Railroad; D. D. Moore, editor of the Times-Picayune; James M. Thompson, publisher of the Item; B. C. Casanas, president of the a.s.sociation of Commerce; L. M. Pool, president of the Marine Bank; J. E. Bouden, president of the Whitney-Central Bank; Bernard McCloskey, attorney; Frank B. Hayne, of the Cotton Exchange; Jefferson D. Hardin, of the Board of Trade; William V. Seeber, representative of the Ninth Ward; Marshall Ballard, editor of The Item. Others present, a.s.senting by their silence, included John F. Clark, president, and E. S. Butler, member of the Cotton Exchange; W. Horace Williams, of Doullut & Williams s.h.i.+pbuilding Company; E. M. Stafford, state senator; C. G. Rives of the Interstate Bank; S. T. DeMilt, president of the New Orleans Steams.h.i.+p a.s.sociation; R. W. Dietrich of the Bienville Warehouse Corporation; Edgar B. Stern, Milton Boylan, W. H. Byrnes, J. C. Hamilton, and about thirty other representative business and professional men. Mayor Behrman, John T.

Banville, president of the Brewery Workers' Union, and George W. Moore, president of the Building Trades Council, at a subsequent meeting, gave their endors.e.m.e.nt.

With only one dissenting voice, these meetings were unanimous that the Industrial Ca.n.a.l must be completed at all costs; that without it, the growth of the city would be seriously interrupted. The one protest was by the Southern Realty and Securities Company. It was made October 23 against the Levee Board's underwriting the interest on the new bond issue.

On that date the Levee Board unanimously voted to guarantee these interest charges, amounting to $375,000 a year. This brings the total being paid by that body out of direct taxation to $925,000.00 a year.

The other $50,000 is paid by the Public Belt Railroad.

To provide a leeway against the engineer's estimates, the Dock Board made provision for a bond issue of $7,500,000, but actually issued only $5,000,000 worth. This was taken by the same syndicate of bankers that had taken the previous issues, but this time they paid par. That was a point on which President Hudson had insisted. The contract was accepted December 10, 1919.

And the work went on, with every effort concentrated on economical construction.

SIPHON AND BRIDGES.

As an incident in the work of building the Industrial Ca.n.a.l, it was necessary to create a disappearing river.

This is the famous siphon--the quadruple pa.s.sage of concrete that will carry the city's drainage underneath the s.h.i.+pway. It is one of the largest structures of its kind in the country.

A word about New Orleans' drainage problem. The city is the bowl of a dish, of which the levees against river and lake are the rim. There is no natural drainage. The rainfall is nearly five feet a year, concentrated at times, upon the thousand miles of streets, into cloudbursts of four inches an hour and ten inches in a day. In the boyhood of men now in their early thirties it was a regular thing for the city to be flooded after a heavy rain.

To meet the situation, New Orleans has constructed the greatest drainage system in the world. There are six pumping stations on the east side of the river, connected with each other by ca.n.a.ls, and with a discharge capacity of more than 10,000 cubic feet a second. The seven billion gallons of water that these pumps can move a day would fill a lake one mile square and thirty-five feet deep.

Three of the ca.n.a.ls empty into Lake Pontchartrain, the fourth, the Florida Walk Ca.n.a.l, into Bayou Bienvenu, which leads into Lake Borgne, an arm of Pontchartrain.

Because of this drainage contamination, the lake sh.o.r.e front of New Orleans has been held back in its development. Yet it is an ideal site for a suburb--on a beautiful body of water, and just half a dozen miles from the business district.

So the Sewerage and Water Board has been planning ultimately to turn the city's entire drainage into Bayou Bienvenu, a stream with swamps on both sides, running into a lake surrounded by marsh.

The Industrial Ca.n.a.l crosses the Florida Walk drainage ca.n.a.l. This made it necessary to build the inverted siphon.

A siphon, in the ordinary sense, is a bent tube, one section of which is longer than the other, through which a liquid flows by its own weight over an elevation to a lower level. But siphon here is an engineering term to describe a channel that goes under an obstruction--the ca.n.a.l--and returns the water to its former level.

Like the famous rivers that drop into the earth and appear again miles further on, the Florida drainage ca.n.a.l approaches to within a hundred or so feet of the Industrial Ca.n.a.l, then dives forty feet underground, pa.s.ses beneath the s.h.i.+pway, and comes to the surface on the other side, in front of the pumping station, which lifts it into Bayou Bienvenu.

At first it was planned to build a comparatively small siphon, but while the plans were being drawn, New Orleans entered upon its tremendous development. The engineers threw away their blueprints and began over again. They designed one that is capable of handling the entire drainage of the city. And in April, 1920, it was finished--a work of steel and concrete and machinery, costing nearly three-quarters of a million dollars, and with a capacity of 2,000 cubic feet of water a second, 7,200,000 an hour, 172,800,000 a day.

It was a work that presented many difficulties. First the Florida Walk ca.n.a.l had to be closed by two cofferdams. The s.p.a.ce between was pumped out, the excavation was made, and the driving of foundation piling begun. Quicksands gave much trouble. They flowed into the cut, until they were stopped with sheet piling. The piles were from 30 to 60 feet in length and from three to five feet apart on centers.

Forty-six feet below the ground surface (-26 Cairo datum) was laid the concrete floor of the siphon.