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Lake History
- Then and Now
Atlanta once was looked
at as possible port city
 By David Coughlin
River development on the federal
level of the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee, Flint River System (ACF)
was for many years not unlike most of the large rivers in the South.
The majority of the work and primary focus was to augment and
improve commercial navigation below the Fall Line which represented
the bulk of the revenue generated by the river. The U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers was charged with keeping the river channel open by
removing snags (trees and other forestation that fall into the
channel as the result of shoreline erosion), dredging (removal of
mud, sand, and silt that builds up in the channel as a result of
changes in river velocity) and general clearing.
Congress appropriated some
$13,000 between 1828 and 1831 to remove any obstructions in the
river channel and an 1853 river survey focused primarily on the
Chattahoochee River below Columbus, Ga.
River surveys and congressional
appropriations up to the turn of the century continued with the
status quo which focused attention at widening the river channel but
not much more. Congressional appropriations for large public works
projects were still decades away. In 1915 Congress authorized a
study of the Chattahoochee River in Alabama and Georgia. Three
different plans were submitted for the improvement of the river
channel and the first one looked at eventually making Atlanta a port
city. Augmented improvement of the river channel from its mouth
all the way to Atlanta was examined. It suggested a series of locks
between Columbus and Atlanta at a cost of over $32 million.
Although little in the way of actual river improvements ever became
of this study at least the government was attempting to look into
the future to a time when more than studies would be made.
Several river and harbor acts
were passed over the next decade but the first true construction
project on the river system that did more than remove snags and
other river obstructions was the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act
of 1935. This legislation was aimed at flood control work on the
Chattahoochee River near West Point. Although it did provide for
river channel improvements it also provided for clearing of floodway
areas, levee construction, and bridge construction. It was truly a
look into the future when Congress would pass legislation that
approved then funded multi-million dollar public works projects.
Studies aimed at building a
large dam near Atlanta first appeared in the 1930s when the U.S.
House of Representatives authorized the creation of a report on the
Apalachicola River Basin as part of House Document 308, during the
1st Session of the 69th Congress. This legislation authorized the
Corps to complete surveys on navigable streams and their tributaries
that could feasibly provide multiple benefits such as flood control,
power development and navigation. Earlier the Corps had formulated
plans to build such a dam near Roswell and although numerous studies
on this site were made by the end of the decade a more desirable
location had been chosen.
David Coughlin has written
"The History of Lake Lanier, A Story Book Site, The Early History
and Construction of Buford Dam". The book is available at the
following locations: Aqualand, Holiday, Port Royale, Sunrise Cove
and Lanier Harbor marinas; Humpus Bumpus Books in Cumming;
Frames-You-Nique in Gainesville: Borders Books in Buford, Duluth and
Snellville. The book also my be ordered online at
www.lakelanierhistory.com.
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