The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-06-22
MOBILE PORT CAN SOON CELEBRATE
 ITS CENTENNIAL
First Improvement Work Started By Govern
 ment In 1926

Nearly one hundred years have been required for the deepening of Mobile bay channel from 51a feet to 30 feet and the process has not always kept pace with the demands of chipping. Efforts are now under way and bill pending in Congress to give Mobile a .32-foot channel to the gulf
 Mobile may we'll celebrate in 1926 the centennial of harbor improvement by the federal government, the original project for which was adopted by Con gress 98 years ago. Prior to that time vessels drawing more than 515 or 6 feet could not enter the port and harbor of Mobile.
 The usable depth of the water in Mobile bay at that time was about Is feet, except over Choctaw pass bar, b1h feet and Dog River bar, 8 feet. The first appropriation, $10,0O0, was intended to dredge a channel 10 feet deep and POO feet wide across those two Instructions. Old charts show a deeper channel to the Port of Blakeley on Spanish river, which town threatened the supremacy of Mobile as Alabama 's chief seaport because larger vessels could find protection in its harbor.
 During the war between the sections and. in fact, until 1870, the work was carried on by the state harbor board, with limited state appropriations. This board built ietties in an effort to SCOUT ont the passes and carried on dredging work in Dog river bar; but the sub aeouent reports of engineers show that the states work was rather harmful than beneficial. There was usaoie channel depth of 71S feet at the time the federal government resumed opera lions in 1870. The legislature abolished the state harbor board in 1875,
 Project Of 1870
 The project adopted in le'u pro vided for a 13-foot channel through the two bars, which project was completed in 1878; the cut through Choctaw pass having been widened to 300 feet. Yes sells drawing more than 13 feet had to anchor 27 miles below the city and lighter cargo to and from Mobile. This was a period of great commercial pros ,perity for Mobile, as other prots TOT the cotton and lumber exports or the middle gulf region were in even worse ease. before New Orleans was relieved by the construction of Eads Jetties.
 The Mobile board of trade, of which the present Mobile Chamber of Com merce is the lawful descendant, began in 1875 the movement for deeper channel from Mobile to the Gulf. which resulted in the adoption in 1878 of q project for a channel 17 feet deep and POO feet wide, which was completed by contract.
 Mai. Sarl North, United States engi. neer. from whose reports the dates and figures above quoted were taken, gives the information that many alternative plans were considered before the IT. foot channel project finally was adopt' ed. These included: A harbor at Dauphin Island with railroad to Mobile, A harbor at Alabama Port with railroad to Mobile, parallel dykes or walls from the mouth of Mobile river to the Gulf, dams across the upper ends of spanish and Tensaw rivers to confine the en- tire flow of the several rivers enter ing Mobile bay through one mouth, and parallel dykes through the bay to deep water, and other schemes to increase the current, volume and velocity so that sediment would be carried out to deeper water, creating a self-deepening channel. All of these schemes were aDan0Oneu TOT Vdrlous IedSuhS bhousH there is a revival of the idea of making a harbor at Dauphin Island and using it in connection with the Warrior wa terways as a coaling station.
 Importance FOretOld
 The rising importance of Mobile as a seaport has never been more clearly seen or foretold than in statement made in 1881 by the resident United States engineer at Mobile, who is thus quoted by Major North.
 ''The position of Mobile on the Gulf of Mexico is such that she must be- come in time a very important port for the traffic between the West Indies and South America on the one hand and the great northwest of this coun- try on the other. Unbroken railroad connections with Chicago, St. Louis Cincinnati, Louisville and other cities of the northwest and also with the Pa cific coast now exist and furnish the four millions of people of that vast section of the union with the produc. tions ~ this traffic in less time and