Work in the meantime had begun on the commodity warehouse and wharf,
another facility planned by the Dock Board to relieve the growing
pains. Built on the Canal, but opening on the river, it was to perform
the same service for general commodities as the Public Cotton Warehouse
and the Public Grain Elevator did for those products. Though not a part
of the canal plan, the construction of the warehouse at this point was
part of the general scheme to concentrate industrial development on
that waterway.
Later, the Federal Government took over this work and gave New Orleans
a $13,000,000 terminal, through which it handled army supplies. It is
still using the three warehouses for storage purposes, but has leased
the half-mile double-deck wharf to the Dock Board, which is devoting it
to the general commerce of the port. In time, the Dock Board hopes to
get at least one of the buildings.
There can be no doubt but that the enterprise of New Orleans in
building the Industrial Canal had a great deal to do with the
government's determination to establish a depot at New Orleans.
On May 30, the news came out of Washington that the Doullut & Williams
Shipbuilding Company had been awarded a $15,000,000 contract by the
Emergency Fleet Corporation to build eight ships of 9,600 tons each.
This was the largest shipbuilding contract that had been given the
South. The Industrial Canal rendered it possible.
The firm of Doullut & Williams had been engaged for fifteen years or so
in the civil engineering and contracting business in New Orleans.
Captain M. P. Doullut had built launches with his own hands when a
young man, and dreamed of the time when he would have a yard capable of
turning out ocean-going vessels. The Doullut & Williams Shipbuilding
Company was organized April 25, 1918, with the following officers: M.
P. Doullut, president; Paul Doullut, vice-president; W. Horace
Williams, secretary-treasurer and general manager; L. H. Guerin, chief
engineer; and James P. Ewin, assistant chief engineer.
"I feel that New Orleans is on the eve of a very remarkable
development" said Senator Ransdell of Louisiana in a telegram of
congratulation, "and earnestly hope our people will continue to work
together with energy and hearty accord until we have gone way over the
top in shipbuilding and many other lines."
The expression "over the top" had not become the pest that it and other
war-time weeds of rhetoric have subsequently proven. That was a time
when one could still refer to a "drive" without causing a gnashing of
teeth.
Picking the site at the Lake Pontchartrain end of the canal, Doullut &
Williams Shipbuilding Company began to erect its shipyard. The plant
buildings were erected upon tall piling. As the dredges excavated the
material from the cut, they deposited it on the site of the shipyard
and raised the elevation several feet, so the buildings were only the
usual height above the ground. Both sides of the Canal, it should be
added, have been similarly raised by excavation material.
It was planned that the ships from the Doullut & Williams yard should
be sent out into the world through Lake Pontchartrain, which empties
into the Gulf of Mexico. There was ample water in the lake, without
dredging, to accommodate unloaded ships of this size.
But the fact that ships 400 or so feet long and drawing, when loaded to
capacity, 27 feet, were to be built at New Orleans, emphasized the
belief of those directing the work of the Industrial Canal that the
plan on which they were working was too small. An 18-foot canal would
not meet the growing needs of New Orleans. Accordingly the Dock Board
instructed the engineering department to expand the plans.
By June 11, 1918, the plans had been revised to give a 25-foot channel.
This would accommodate all but the largest ships that come to New
Orleans. The cost of such a lock and canal, George M. Wells estimated,
would be $6,000,000, or $2,500,000 more than the estimate for the
original canal. The Levee Board promptly raised its ante to $250,000 to
guarantee the interest.
When the Dock Board floated the first bond issue of $3,500,000 in
February, at 95, it reserved the option to issue another $1,000,000 of
bonds within thirty days, at the same rate.
For $1,500,000 of the new issue, the same syndicate of banks offered
97-1/2, or two and a half points higher than for the first; but for the
other million, they held the board to the original rate of 95.
President Thompson reported to the Dock Board June 11 that he
considered these "very satisfactory terms." He added: "We were able to
secure these better prices and conditions because the bond market is in
a somewhat better condition now than it was when we made the original
contract."
The contract was accepted on that date, and application made to the
Capital Issues Committee for the necessary permission. This was given
in due time, though there was considerable opposition.
The opposition, said President Thompson, at the Dock Board meeting of
February 26, 1919, reviewing the development of the canal plans, "was
inspired by vicious and spectacular attacks of certain private
interests hostile to the canal project and to the port of New Orleans."
Railroads, whose right of way crossed the Canal, were the principal
propagandists. They realized that the Dock Board could not be required
to build their bridges over the waterway, and although the Thompson
board financed the work at the time, they knew that sooner or later
would come a day of reckoning. The Hudson Board has since then taken
steps to collect several million dollars from these roads.
But why build a canal almost large enough, only? Why build a 25-foot
lock when ships drawing 30-feet of water come to New Orleans? A lock
cannot be enlarged, once it is completed--and the tendency of the times
is towards larger ships. Why not make a capacity facility while they
were about it?
[Illustration: LOCK SITE
Driving Sheet Piling]
[Illustration: LOCK SITE
Dredges Entering]
These were questions the Dock Board asked itself, and on June 29, 1918,
it decided to build the lock with a 30-foot depth over the sill at
extreme low water, and make the canal 300 feet wide at the top, and 150
feet wide at the bottom.
To do this, would cost about $1,000,000 more, it was estimated by
George M. Wells of the Goethals company--a sum which the Dock Board
thought would be realized from the rental-revenues of Doullut &
Williams and the Foundation Company, without increasing the second bond
issue.
This is the Canal that was finally built--nearly 70 per cent larger
than the one that was begun and about 100 per cent larger than the one
originally planned, when the newspapers and forward-looking told the
people that the lack of such a canal had cost New Orleans millions of
dollars in development.