Daily new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1897-1906, 1898-01-18
INTERESTING HISTORY.
How the River was Stacked
and the Men Who did the
Trick.

ment and the prospects for its con
tinuance.-What it means to the val
ley and to Pittsburg.
One long continuous system of all
the year round inland navigation
from New Orleans northward along
the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to
Pittsburg, and thence III opposite di-
rectlons along the Monongahela to
the coal fields of West Virginia, and
up the Allegheny to its headwaters,
is the dream of Pittsburg rivermen.
To make that dream a reality
means the building Of many locks and
dams, and the spending of millions of
dollars, and years of work.
VIII the dream ever become a real
ity?
Ask any one of the hundreds of
Pittsburgers engaged in shipping and
river traffic, the men who have for
tunes invested in the business, and
when, and they will say sometime.
The riverman is a hopeful sort of
being, he lives in anticipation of
rises and higher prices for coal "down
the river" and better freight and
passenger season next year. Follow
ing logically his way of looking at
things, he naturally expects some day
to see great piles of masonry rise out
of the river bed and make slack water
where now sand bars rear themselves
in the channel and make navigation
impossible during greatspart of the
year.
So the PIttsburg riYerman dreams
on of what is to come, in the mean
time not in the least neglecting pres
ent opportunities for shadowy posi-
bilities of the future.
And it must be said for these men
as class, that they are pushing and
persistent. Once convinced they
really need some improvement, they
never let up until they have secured
it. Take for instance the building of
the Davis island dam, and the more
recent freeing of the Monongahela
from tolls. There were many who
said neither of these objects would
ever be accomplished. And yet they
stand to-day, lasting monuments to
the men who made them possible.
So now, the rivermen are turning
their attention and efforts toward
accomplishing the gigantic project
outlined above. 1t cannot be done
all at once; they are not trying to do
it at once. They are working along,
taking up one thing at time, doing
that, then going on to the next, with
one definite end in view, each move
being one step nearer its realization.
When the improvements are COM
pleted it will make the finest inland
water course in the world one that
will help to make Pittsburg, its nat
ural center, the greatest industrial
city IN the world.
All Pittsburgers and all residents
of the Monongahela, Allegheny and
Ohio valleys are interested. The
cause has been ably championed in
Congress by both senators and repre-
sentatives from the districts mention
ed Congressman William A. Stone
and John Daizell have been especially
active, as was ex-Congressman Heiner,
of Kittanning.
The project contemplates three
separate plans or systems of water
ways improvement. one each for the
Ohio, Monongahela and Allegheny
rivers. OF the three there is to-day
more to start with on the Monon-
gahela than on either of the Others.
On the Allegheny there is nothing.
The Monongahela has a series of
nine locks and dams, the first being
in the city, at Soho, and then at ir-
regular intervals, according to the
fall in the river, up along the borders
of Washington, Westmoreland, Fay
cite and Green counties, into Monon-
gala county, w. Va, to within a
few miles of Morgantown, where lock
No. 8 is located. OF these locks the
two upper ones were built and have
always been operated by the Govern
ment. The Others were built by the
Monongahela Navigation Company,
and comprise the plant recently
bought and thrown open to free nav
igations. Before the three upper ones
were built the Monongabela was nav
igable only as far up as Geneva. So
when the packet company that oper-
ates the line of passenger and freight
steamers now plying between Pitts
burg and Morgantown was organ
lied many years ago by the late
Captain Adam Jacobs, Captain Isaac