Satellite image of New Orleans captured by the Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus Volume XXV, Number 1 Winter 2008 flying aboard the Landsat 7 satellite, April 26, 2000, courtesy of NASA Surrounded by Water: New Orleans, the Mississippi River, and Lake Pontchartrain The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly 1 Surrounded by Water: New Orleans, the Mississippi River, and Lake Pontchartrain Crescent in the river from an altitude of 5,500 ft. by Sam R. Sutton, January 29, 1965 (1984.166.2.305), gift of Sam R. Sutton and Chester Dyer long its considerable Mississippi. For centuries, the length, the Mississippi river has acted as the primary A River presents many conduit for the consumer goods, appearances. Its headwaters, natural resources, and agricul- in the glacial lakes of Min- tural products that make New nesota, produce a modest stream Orleans one of the world’s great- that gradually widens as it trav- est ports. Lake Pontchartrain to els south. Tumbling over St. the north and the Gulf of Mexico Anthony’s Falls at Minneapolis, to the south further enhance the then passing the bluffs of Iowa, city’s stature as a hub of travel, the river gathers volume and trade, and recreation. Yet peri- width, pressing toward its con- odic flooding, tropical storms, fluence with the Missouri (at St. and vanishing wetlands are ever- Louis) and, further downstream, present reminders of instability. the Ohio (at Cairo, Illinois). Surrounded by water, the city is When the flow reaches the flat- The Red River “Raft” as it was, October 1874 (1974.25.30.541) also surrounded by risk. And lands of Louisiana, its broad, still, New Orleans perseveres. sheetlike surface belies a swift and treacherous current, racing Surrounded by Water: New Orleans, the Mississippi River, and toward discharge into the Gulf of Mexico through a weblike Lake Pontchartrain, currently on view in the Williams Gallery, array of channels. offers a wide-ranging view of the city’s environmental history. The city of New Orleans owes its existence—and its Maps, photographs, and memorabilia document centuries of economic viability—to its location near the mouth of the dependence on—and modifications of—our watery environs. 2 Volume XXV, Number 11 —— WinterWinter 20082008 Lower Mississippi River Early Stream Channels… by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1765–1932 (1999.111.27,.28,.32.,34), gift of Col. and Mrs. L. B. Wilby. The lower portion of the Mississippi, below the Missouri and Ohio rivers, meanders as it flows through relatively level land. As it seeks a more direct path to the Gulf of Mexico, the river creates twists, turns, oxbows, and cutoffs across the terrain. This striking series of maps, on display in the exhibition, shows the Mississippi’s course from its confluence with the Ohio at Cairo, Illinois, as far south as Baton Rouge. Colored tracks indicate changes in the river’s channel between 1765 and 1932. v able enough to render the pass unnavigable. By the 1860s the problem was so serious that deep-draft ships were frequently hrough much of the 19th century, shipping on the Missis- blocked from approaching New Orleans, forcing captains to Tsippi River was hindered by a variety of obstacles—those seek other ports. In the late 1870s engineer James B. Eads fixed firmly in the mud (snags), those bobbing on the surface (1820–1887) designed a series of jetties at South Pass which (sawyers), and others, including sandbars, that were not always allowed silt to be deposited beyond the continental shelf, end- visible from the river pilot’s vantage point. The modern U.S. ing bar-related navigation problems at the pass. Eads’s jetties, Army Corps of Engineers, formed in 1802, was charged with and the promise of a year-round navigation channel, sparked a the task of building and maintaining America’s navigation canals shipping boom in ports along the river. and coastal defenses. An 1824 act of Congress “to improve the Another “hazard” for navigators was the ever-shifting navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers” extended the course of the river itself. Charles Pike’s 1847 “ribbon map” Corps’ mandate to include the removal of obstacles such as snags supplied the names of land owners and the location of their and sandbars from the nation’s major rivers. In Louisiana, the plots along the Mississippi corridor from Port Hudson, a small Corps focused its efforts on the breakup of the Great Red River town north of Baton Rouge, to New Orleans. Similar maps Raft, an impenetrable logjam blocking the Red River—a tribu- produced for river pilots—often in book form—provided per- tary of the Mississippi—to the north of Natchitoches in the late tinent updates on the river’s changing course. Replete with 19th century. extensive commentary on adjacent lands, the bound versions One of the Mississippi River’s worst obstacles lay at the of these maps functioned not only as navigational aids but also river’s mouth, where a constant buildup of silt created bars siz- as travel guides. The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly 3 On the Mississippi—The Essayons at Work Removing the Bar at the Mouth of the Southwest Pass by Alfred Rudolph Waud and T. Speer, June 3, 1871 (1966.2.2) During the last quarter of the 19th channel below Baton Rouge. Since the authorized the construction of a canal— century, the Corps stabilized the course 1950s, a series of dams and spillways known as the Carondelet or Old Basin of the Mississippi from St. Louis to on the Red and Old rivers has allowed Canal—between the bayou and what Minneapolis, ensuring predictable navi- some water to pass into the Atchafalaya is now Basin Street. Its purpose was to gation between the two river ports. A Basin, while holding the Mississippi permit ship-borne cargo to be brought variety of manmade structures—wing to its current path—flowing past New to the “back door” of the city. Shallow dams, revetments (concrete embank- Orleans, south through Plaquemines depth and a narrow channel limited the ments), weirs, and locks—produced a Parish, and out into the Gulf of Mexico. canal’s efficacy, and a few decades later a mostly predictable navigation route and After the great flood of 1927, engineers new watercourse was proposed. diminished the effects of natural features increasingly relied on spillways to divert The New Basin Canal was built in like rapids, bars, multiple channels, and floodwaters in a controlled fashion. The the 1830s along the route now occupied snags. Bonnet Carré Spillway, about 25 miles by the Pontchartrain Expressway, about Since the great Mississippi River upriver from New Orleans, became a mile west of the Old Basin Canal. flood of 1927, the Corps has taken on operational in 1931 and has been Both canals were an integral part of the an increasingly central role in flood pro- opened several times to protect the city city’s port system, their banks lined with tection—constructing levees, spillways, from floods. warehouses storing lumber and bricks, and other structures designed to protect While the Corps wrestled with the produce and seafood. The Old and New America’s urban and natural resources. Mississippi River, New Orleans mari- Basin canals provided an open water One of the greatest challenges currently time interests sought avenues for uti- route to the center of the city for certain facing the Corps is the maintenance of lizing Lake Pontchartrain’s economic low-draft vessels, but a proposed canal the Old River Control Structure some potential. A waterway between the link to the river—down present-day 100 miles upriver from New Orleans. A Mississippi River and Lake Pontchar- Canal Street—was never built. complex of locks and dams, the structure train long stood as the holy grail of these The Inner Harbor Navigation prevents the Mississippi from meander- interests. Such a route, it was under- Canal, known locally as the Industrial ing west, capturing the Atchafalaya stood, would enhance access to the Gulf Canal, was constructed between 1912 River, and bypassing New Orleans. of Mexico while bypassing the treacher- and 1923. Its opening in 1923 dimin- The Mississippi River constantly ous obstacles of the lower Mississippi. ished the older canals’ importance and seeks the shortest route to the Gulf of In 1794 the Spanish governor, Baron resulted in their closure. The Old Basin Mexico and threatens to abandon its Francisco de Carondelet (1748–1807), Canal was filled in during the 1920s; the 4 Volume XXV, Number 1 — Winter 2008 Land owned by Barthélémy Lafon in Faubourg St. Marie by Barthélémy Lafon, ca. 1810 (1980.187). The plan shows the proposed canal link to the river—down present-day Canal Street—which was never built. New Basin Canal was filled in, in stages, multi-use resource has energized both and continues on view through August between the late 1930s and late 1950s. the public and private sectors. Sur- 10, 2008. The exhibition is open With the extension of the Intra- rounded by Water celebrates the human Tuesday–Saturday, 9:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m., coastal Waterway through eastern New spirit—the industry and the artistry— and Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m., at Orleans in the 1940s, a navigable short- that allows us to be borne, and continu- 533 Royal Street. cut to the Gulf finally became feasible. ally reborn, upon the water. The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, or Free and open to the public, Sur- —Pamela D. Arceneaux, MR-GO, was completed in 1963. So rounded by Water opened January 26 John H. Lawrence, John Magill long anticipated, MR-GO has become a lightning rod for controversy.