The Brownsville daily herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1897-1910, 1908-10-02
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2. 1908.
EWTERCOASTAL CANAL Is
UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

A local item in the Galveston News
of Thursday reads as follows:
Assistant United States Engineer
Wilcox will leave next Monday with a
FORCE of men to commence the work
of surveying the proposed route of
Tntercoastal canal from the Brazos
River TO Pass Cavallo. Following the
hearing by the government engineers
last spring in this city, a survey of
this section was ordered to determine
the cost, and this work is now about
TO be undertaken. The two sections
further west are now in course of
construction, and if an appropriation
is made for this section it will give
light draft inland waterway from
Galveston to Corpus Christi
The attention of the residents of
the fast developing lower Rio Grande
Valley should be particularly direct
ed to the news embodied in this item.
The much talked of, long dreamed of
Intercoastal canal, which had been
thought TO promise so much for
Brownsville. is already under con-
struction but the lower Rio Grande
Valley is not included in the plans so
far provided for or even under con-
temptation at present. Why a region
of such growing Importance, where
the investments in improvements of
permanent nature during the past two
years amount to perhaps ten millions
or more. and which would be directly
tributary to this waterway, should be
ignored cannot be explained except on
the ground that the people most in
terested have simply neglected to
push their claims to the considera-
zion OF the powers that are behind
the enterprise.
Brownsville has always been con-
sidered as the logical terminus of this
great waterway. which is destined to
be one fthe most important of the
branches of the great Lakes to the
Gulf waterway, which is being
planned conformity with the intercoast
waterway Various government en-
gineers have recommended the con-
struction of the canal as far as
Brownsville, and it is recorded that
as far back as 1887 a recommended
ton was made to congress that the
sum of $500, 900 be appropriated for
the deepening of the channel of the
L4aguna Madre between Corpus Chris
Il and Point Isabel, or the mouth of
the Rio Grande. Yet the plan has
been allowed to drag and finally to
be almost lost sight of, either through
the Indifference or lack of influence of
those most interested, or through the
Vaccinations of those who foresee
Toss to their interests in some way by
ITS construction.
The time has come, however, when
this region must no longer submit
ID being ignored, when our large land
0NHeIS muSl push bHclI CldlAuSs anu
see that the Brownsville end of the
canal receives its due recognition
from the powers that be- The veryfact
that Corpus Christi, through its con-
nection by steamer with Galveston,
is now getting a rate which is less
than half that paid by residents of
this valley on freight shipments, is
sufficient to prove that our
people will simply be obliged to exert
themselves, for their very commercial
existence is threatened. There is NO
other section of the state of like area
that can compare in Importance with
that of the Lower Rio Grande valley
today. With us are many men OF
high intelligence and of means sufi-
cient to command the attention OF
congressional committees, or and 9TH
er body that has any relation to the
great improvements which the