Cross Florida Ship Canal

Even during the initial European colonization phases, navigating the Florida cape was deemed perilous. Many ships that tried the long voyage met their fate due to pirates, treacherous currents, hurricanes, and shallow waters.

If completed, the Cross Florida Barge Canal would have connected Central Florida by uniting various rivers, artificial waterways, and lakes. Pedro Menendez de Aviles, the founder of Spanish St. Augustine, initially proposed traversing Florida via inland waterways in 1567.

It took hundreds of years for concrete plans for the canal to take shape. In the 19th century, support for the canal grew. Business owners and traders backed the canal because it would facilitate the sale and shipment of goods like timber and cotton between the East Coast and ports on the Gulf of America.

Ironically, the Great Depression propelled the plan into action. Local politicians urged the federal government to initiate the canal project as a federal relief program through the New Deal. The Franklin Roosevelt administration allocated funding in September 1935, and construction was underway for workers by the end of the month. The plans included a small city with medical and recreational facilities, a dining hall, a post office, and headquarters buildings.

Funding for the canal from the New Deal depleted in just three years. Local critics argued that the canal could harm Florida’s aquifer and waterways. Concerns were echoed nationally as claims emerged that the project was an ineffective use of taxpayer funds, offering little benefit to those beyond Florida.

Yet there remained a glimmer of hope for the canal. German submarines posed a threat to Florida’s coasts and shipping lanes during World War II. In response, Congress transformed the earlier sea-level canal proposal into a lock-and-dam shallow-draft canal along the same route. Following the war, tensions escalated between the United States and the Soviet Union. Proponents of the canal highlighted its importance for national security and reiterated previous arguments supporting its construction. In 1964, construction began anew, marked by a groundbreaking ceremony in Palatka, Florida, attended by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Ultimately, the canal was never built. In the 1960s, a rising tide of environmental consciousness sparked significant opposition to the canal project. Criticism grew stronger due to renewed concerns about both the canal’s cost and its utility. Marjorie Harris Carr, leading the Florida Defenders of the Environment, reached out to President Richard Nixon and launched legal challenges against the construction efforts. Nixon halted the project in 1971, putting an end to what had been a long-held but unfulfilled aspiration. Over the following decade, ongoing legal disputes took place, and enthusiasm for the project diminished. Ultimately, Congress deauthorized the initiative in 1990.

Every old house, river, and road bend in Florida has a story. Some are easy to learn about; others are not. Understanding a place's history is complicated when it changes rapidly. The history of Camp Roosevelt south of Ocala illustrates this. The camp originated as a temporary home for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the large labor force, and emergency housing for World War II veterans and their families working on the canal.

The camp’s population quickly swelled with workers, but their stay was much shorter than planners had expected. Vocal opponents of the canal project in Central and South Florida argued that digging the deep canal would expose and contaminate the underground aquifer that contained their water supply. Sensing trouble, the Roosevelt administration quietly backed away from the project and withdrew support, and Congress failed to extend the original 1935 appropriation. In the summer of 1936, with only preliminary work completed in several locations along the proposed route, work came to a halt.

As the canal is just about one-third complete, the land set aside for its path is currently in a bit of a holding pattern. This raises an important question: what should we do with the largest unfinished public works project in history?