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GATES AJARI
Muscle Shoals Open!
THE WORKJS DONE!
A Water Route to the Sea!
Shout Aloud With Joy and Gladness —
Send Out the Tidings!—Chattanooga Is
Free.—The Discriminations of Railroads
Soon to Be at an End. —All Obstacles
Removed. —The Noble Tennessee Opens
the Marts of the World. —A Most Event
ful Epoch in the History of Chattanooga.
—Long Years of Patient Waiting and
the Expenditure of Millions Finally Re
warded.—The Rich, Inexhaustible and
Varied Treasures of the Chattanooga Dis
trict Given Easy and Cheap Access to
All Parts of the World. —Now Watch Us
Grow ! —A Dozen Railroads and a River
to the Sea, Good for Navigation Nine
Months in the Year. —What More Can
We Wish for?—The Steamboat A. C.
Conn Has the Distinction of Being the
First Steamboat Passing Through the
Canal. —It Passed Through Yesterday.
It will arrive This Evening and Will Be
Received with General Rejoicing: —Fire-
works. —Music and a Great Hurrah.
Decatur, Ala., November 12.
Blount Stave Machine Company:
We have passed the Muscle Shoals—the first
boat through—Hurrah! Will be in Chatta
nooga to-morrow night. A. C. Conn,
This telegram contains the most
important news that the Times has
had the pleasure of recording for many
years.
The Muscle Shoals Canal is com
pleted and this morning every citizen
will rejoice!
To-day the Chamber of Commerce
and Board of Trade will hold meetings,
which will be in the nature of a jubilee.
If the weather will permit the mili
tary companies will be out in full force.
Drums and fifes will play, every
band will lend its aid, and the horns
will help to swell the sound!
The whistles of the city will all be
blown when the Conn comes in sight.
Every man, woman and child will
be happy!
The work of many years and the
expenditure of many million dollars
has at last made Chattanooga free!
And the city is no longer at the
mercy of the railroad companies, but
its manufacturers and merchants can
dictate terms!
River navigation will connect the
city with all northwestern and south
western points!
A line of steamers will ply between
Chattanooga and New Orleans!
The beginning of an epoch in the
history of the city which will astonish
the world by the rapidity of its growth!
All that was needed to make Chat
tanooga the greatest city in the South
has at last been accomplished!
The greatest possibility has material
ized ; the Muscle Shoals Canal is open
at last!
The exact hour at which the boat
will arrive cannot be told, but will be
bulletined at the Times office to-day.
The wires will be used freely to learn
its progress. The Conn will run from
this city in connection with the stave
trade of the Blount Stave Machinery
Company of this city, to whom she
belongs.
FIRST BOAT THROUGH THE CANAL.
Before referring to the mammoth
undertaking, over which all seat ions
adjacent to the Tennessee, and Chat
tanooga in particular, will naturally
iejoice, it may be of interest to say
something of the steam tug “A. C.
Conn,” which yesterday successfully
passed through the canal.
Capt. A. C. Conn, general man
ager of the Blount Stave Machine Com
pany of this city, was interested in the
lumber business at Green Bay, Wis.,
two years ago. His company decided
to establish the Blount Stave Machine
Company here, and to remove from
Green Bay, in Lake Michigan, the
steamer A. C. Conn, drawing about
three feet of water, a sidewheel tug
with two barges. She was started in
Oct., 1887, on the assurance that Mus
cle Shoalsand al!other obstructions to
navigation in the Tennessee River to
Chattanoega would be removed in or
before the spring of First she
went up the Fox and Wisconsin Canal,
sixty-five miles long with seventeen
locks of ten feet lift each, built by the
United States Government to connect
Lake Michigan with Lake Winnebago,
thence up the Upper Fox and Wis
consin River into Lake Winnebago,
thence across Lake Winnebago to the
mouth of the Upper Fox River, a dis
tance of twenty-five miles to the city
of Oshkosh, Wis., thence up the Up
per Fox a distance of eighty-five miles
to the Portage canal, a distance of one
and one-half miles, also built by the
United States, to connect the Upper
Fox with the Wisconsin River, thence
down the Wisconsin to the mouth at
the Mississippi River, a distance of
about 120 miles, to the city of Prairie
Du Chien, Wis., where she was frozen
up for the winter of 1887-88.
In the spring of 1888, late in April,
“the thaw'’ came, and she moved down
the Mississippi to the mouth of the
Ohio, about 600 miles, thence up the
Ohio to the mouth of the Tennessee, a
distance of about forty miles; thence
up the Tennessee to Colbert Shoals, a
distance of about 296 miles, which she
reached about May 20, 1888, and
could get no farther on account of Col
bert Shoals in Tennessee River. The
President vetoed the river and harbor
bill, and the A. C. Conn from that
time was unable to get beyond Flor
ence, Alabama, below the Muscle
Shoals.
MUSCLE SHOALS CANAL.
The work on Muscle Shoals Canal,
which was begun in 1875, would have
been completed five or six years ago,
but for the failure of Congressional ap
propriations on several occasions.
The work consisted in enlarging and
rebuilding the old canal, built more
than fifty years ago, around Big Mus
cle Shoals, and in extending the im
provement around the Elk River Shoals
and Little Muscle Shoals. This in
volved about sixteen miles of canal
and twelve miles of open channel im
provement by means of rock excava
tion and stone placed so as to give three
feet depth at extreme low water. For
this purpose two and a half miles ol
channel have been blasted from the
mouth of the river, which required the
removal of over 100,000 cubic yards
of sold rock and a construction of 450
linear feet of temporary dams and 14,-
000 feet of coffer dams. By means ol
these dams the channel was inclosed in
sections, so that the water was pumped
out and the bed rock laid bare and
blasted out easily and rapidly, leaving
a smooth channel of uniform width
that will be easy to navigate and not
likely to fill up.
For the entire canal (by the way,
the largest canal work in the country)
eleven locks, 60 feet wide by 300 feet
THE GAZETTE.
between the gates, were required. To
give one an idea of the immensity of
this work, the masonry of the locks
foot up a total of 50,600 cubic yards
of cut stone, which, to illustrate, would
build a solid wall of masonry 18 feet
high, 10J feet wide at the bottom, 4
feet wide at the top and 2 miles long.
In addition to the locks, another
very heavy piece of work is the Shoal
Creek aqueduct, about equal to two
locks, which is 850 feet in length, 60
feet wide, 5 feet deep and rests on 27
cut stone piers and abutments and con
tains 598 heavy iron beams and 570
steel plates. The total weight of iron
in this aqueduct aggregates 1,000
tons.
IMPORTANCE TO CHATTANOOGA.
Chattanooga is vitally interested in
the completion of this work. Now
that ihe canal is completed there will
be unobstructed navigation from Chat
tanooga via Paducah to New Orleans,
and it will serve to completely revolu
tionize the fuel supply of that city.
W ith Muscle Shoals canal completed,
the Tennessee from Chattanooga is
made a more navigable stream in all
respects than the Ohio from Pittsburg.
A study of the facts will at once con
vince the most skeptical of this.
Take the matter of distances: Pitts
burg is distant from New Orleans by
water 2,067 miles. Chattanooga is
distant from New Orleans by water
1,601 miles, 466 miles nearer than
Pittsburg. The distance from Chatta
nooga to Cairo by water is 501 miles.
Chattanooga is but thirty-four miles
further from New Orleans than Cin
cinnati.
With the Muscle Shoals Canal open
and projected improvements completed
there will be five feet of through nav
igation water from Chattanooga nine
months in the year, while the channel
above and below the canal will have a
depth of eight feet —three and one-halt
feet the year round. This is a greater
depth than the Ohio has from Pitts
burg to Cincinnati in its low water
season, and what is more important,
navigation will never be impeded by
ice. The Ohio is obstructed by sand
bars in low water season and by ice in
winter —the season when coal is most
needed. Periods of absolute inter
ruption to navigation occur in the
Ohio, and vary in length from four
to thirty-six days, beginning as early
as December 9 and as late as February
23, as is shown by the record of twen
ty-three years.
CHATTANOOGA TO THE GULF.
The Tennessee flows through a cal
careous soil, and there is but little in
terruption by sandba»s; its channel is
practically permanent; there are never
any new sand shoals formed, and ice
obstructions are unknown. The chan
nel is always open and no necessity
exists for “ice harbors,” nor need any
precautions be taken against ice block
ades, etc., which quite frequently en
tail heavy losses. In view of these
facts, anti above ail, as the route to
the gull is 466 miles shorter than from
Pitisburg (25 per cent,) the cost ol
transportation to New Orleans and the
gulf will be less from Chattanooga than
from Pittsburg.
The cost of tiansporting coal from
Pittsburg to New Orleans is $1.05 per
ton. It can be transported from Chat
tanooga for 80 to 90 cents per ton,
hence the net cost of coal delivered on
the barge at New Orleans from Chat
tanooga will be about SI.BO or $1.90
per ton.
The Tennessee River Valley is de
veloping with wonderful rapidity, its
commerce is expanding at a rate sec
ond to no section in America. Al
ready 800,000 tons of pig iron are pro
duced annually in the region drained
by the Tennessee and its tributaries,
and its annual yield of coal is many
times greater.
It is the second coke producing sec
tion in America, the first in the yield
of marble, and its resources of copper,
zinc, building stone, slate, etc., are
limitless. Fertile savannahs fringe
from the Tennessee for hundreds of
miles, the East Tennessee is unequaled
in its production of small fruits and
produce. In hard woods and every
variety of timber, the supply is almost
exhaustless.
THE FORMAL OPENING.
Os course, the successful passage of
the steam tug Conn through the canal
doesn’t necessarily mean a formal
opening. That will come later. When
it does come, however, as is likely to
occur shortly, it will be a big event
properly celebrated, and the rejoicings
of a long-suffering, but patient com
munity will well up in a unison of
thanks to the Government and the
efficient engineers who have brought
the great undertaking to a successful
finish. Meanwhile the city can rejoice
that the entire work is practically fin
ished now. — Chattanooga Times, Nov.
13.
Rocked in the Cradle of + he
Deep.
BY EMMA WILLABr
U
Rock’d in the cradle of the ch ep,
I lay rue down in peace to sleep •
Secure I rest upon the wave,
For thou O! Lord, hast pow’r to save.
I know thou wilt not slight my call,
For thou dost mark the sparrow’s fall!
And calm and peaceful is my slee*o -
Rock’d in the cradle of the deep,
And calm and peaceful is my kep,
Rock’d in the cradle of the de .p.
And such the trust that still were mine,
Tho’ stormy winds swept o'er the brine,
Or tho’ the tempest’s fiery breath,
Rous’d me from sleep to wreck and death !
In ocean cave still safe with Thee,
The germ of immortality :
And calm and peaceful is my sleep,
Rock’d in the cradle of the deep.
And calm and peaceful is my sleep,
Rock’d in the cradle of the deep.
There have been built this summer
and are now in process of building, in
Acworth, Ga., eight new dwelling
houses, all costly and of the latest
style. In addition to this, Prof. N.
E. W. Stokely is erecting a large
normal school building. In connec
tion with this school the citizens are
erecting a fifteen-room boarding-house
for the free use of non-resident students
who may come here to attend this
school. Acworth is a most excellent
location for the school, being healthy
and bountifully supplied by nature
with the purest and best water to be
found in Georgia. Besides, those who
may desire to attend can do so at very
little cost.
The most noticeable feature about
our city to a person visiting Dalton
alter an absence of two or three years
would be the great improvement in
architecture. The plain and unpre
tentious dwelling .is rapidly giving
place to the modern house, so attrac
tive in appearance and convenient in
its appointments. — Dalton (Ga.) Citi
zen.
Figures published in the last num
ber of the Railway Aye show that Geor
gia leads all the other States in new
railroad mileage laid during the first
nine months ot the presentyear. Geor
gia’s mileage is stated to be 238;
Washington territory comes next with
214; and no other State or territory
exceeds 180.
You can leave Kansas City one
morning and reach Atlanta the even
ing of the next day if your ticket read
over the W. & A.