Cross-Florida Barge Canal, 1927-1968

The early and later history of the Cross-Florida Barge Canal is said to be divided by the enactment of the River and Harbor Act, signed into law January 21, 1927 by President Calvin Coolidge. This act authorized the secretary of war to make a preliminary examination and survey of the “Waterway from Cumberland Sound, Georgia and Florida, to the Mississippi River,” and it had had the full support of President Harding, Coolidge’s predecessor, who declared himself in favor of the broadest development of the country’s inland waterways. Henry Holland Buckman, who has been called the “father confessor” of the present canal project, described this legislation as “the movement which finally resulted in beginning construction of the canal.