The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-07-05

Six feet of water from Minneapolis
to New Orleans!
Government engineers, who have been
making survey of the upper Missis-
sippi, will report that a six-foot mini
mum channel is entirely feasible, &C
cording to advices received by A. L..
Crocker. the Minneapolis member of the
executive committee of the Upper Mis-
sissippi River Improvement association.
The survey was secured thru the efforts
of this association. which will hold it's
Der, and the result of it will be i'm
mensely pleasing to all interested in
the improvement of the great water
way.
"The result of the survey will
show says Mr.. Crocker. "that a six
foot channel can be maintained with
out any additional dams, and at little
more cost than a four-foot channel
would require. The highest hope Of
river navigators has been a four-foot
channel at low water. Even that would
result In building up an enormous ton
mage by the river.
"The government engineers now
claim that they can maintain naviga-
tion thruout the river season, even THO
there should be q dry year and low
water. This is the fourth year of high
water, and the engineers now feel GER
tain that they can furnish channel at
all times that will float the Diamond 10
liners from Minneapolis to st. Louis.
That does not. mean that a four:.foot
There is much yet to do, and appro-
priations are too small to do the work
fast enough. A four or six-foot cham
mel is entirely feasible, however. ac-
cording to the government engineers.
It can be maintained without new dams,
simply by holding the river in fixed
channel, and SO securing out the de-
sired depth. .".%
A Sample Trip.
"That means big things for Mime
apolis. A single steamer on the unim-
proved Ohio and on the lower Missis-
sippi, the steamer Sprague, hauled in
would make solid freight train fifteen
miles long The cost was one-third
of mill ton mile, less than on any
other waterway in the world. This
cost included the return Of the empty
barges. The trip was a profitable one
for the steamer and barges.
II have these facts on the authority
Ohio, president Of the Ohio River I'm,
provement association. I am informed
that tug and steel barges are being
built to haul 100000 tons, which would
reduce the cost d ton mile. I would
call the attention Of these figures to
Minneapolis -four exporters.
Applied to Minneapolis.
bringing the matter right home, I
have 1t on the authority of Major
Meigs. who for more than twenty years
has been In charge of the locks and
canal at Keokuk. that with a six-foot
channel single barges of 1000 tons bur
den can be foated up river and thru our
Meeker island locks into Minneapolis
He further says that several such
barges, say five, can be so drawn by q
train loads Of 1000 tons each could
be drawn by single tug up river into
Minneapolis. The number would be
larger, Of course, for the downstream
trip.
Tonnage Is Heavy.
"From what information I have been
able to gather, the upriver traffic would
largely exceed at first the visible down
river business. Captain Isaac Lusk of
the Diamond 10 says the upriver ton
mage would be immense. If lows of
barges came up loaded, they certainly
would not go back empty. They would
make such rates as to secure full car
goes. The stimulus to trade and manu-.
featuring by such reductions would Ger.
tainly mean much to the twin cities
and to the northwest. No business fac.
tor compares with transportation, and
no transportation factor so concerns the
twin cities and the northwest as the
Mississippi river outlet to the outside
world. Minneapolis has never concerned
herself much with the country to the
south.
"The men who made this city have
had brief time and full occupation in
exploiting the nearby forests and wheat
fields. But the mighty developing
northwest bears a new relation to the
great middle west and Mississippi val
ley, and the twin cities are the great
receiving and distributing point be-
tween the two -