Louisville and Portland Canal

The Louisville and Portland Canal was a 1.9-mile (3.1 km) canal bypassing the Falls of the Ohio River at Louisville, Kentucky. The Falls form the only barrier to navigation between the origin of the Ohio at Pittsburgh and the port of New Orleans near the Gulf of Mexico; circumventing them was long a goal for Pennsylvanian and Cincinnatian merchants. The canal opened in 1830 as the private Louisville and Portland Canal Company but was gradually bought out during the 19th century by the federal government, which had invested heavily in its construction, maintenance, and improvement. The Louisville and Portland Canal was renamed as the McAlpine Locks and Dam in 1962 after extensive modernization. The name "Louisville and Portland Canal" (or simply "Portland Canal") is still used to refer to the canal itself, which runs between the Kentucky bank and Shippingport Island from about 10th Street down to the locks at 27th Street. The canal was the first major improvement to be completed on a major river of the United States.

History

Background The Falls of the Ohio are the only natural obstruction to riverine traffic from the source of the Ohio at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to the Gulf of Mexico. Some of the earliest cities in Kentucky – Louisville, Portland, and Shippingport – developed from the need for portage of cargo around the rapids, except during a few weeks each spring when water on the river was very high. Although this source of income was popular with locals, merchants invested upriver – particularly those in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Cincinnati – disliked the expense and hassle. The situation caused wide fluctuations in prices up- and downstream, as there was always a glut of shipments during the few weeks of high water each year.

The first meeting of the trustees of the Town of Louisville on February 7, 1781, adopted a petition to the Virginia General Assembly for the right to construct a canal around the falls. Two years later, engineer and canal advocate Christopher Colles petitioned the Congress of the Confederation, promising to start a canal company in exchange for a grant comprising the necessary land. They declined. Serious plans for a canal circulated throughout the early 1800s, with Cincinnatians in particular advocating a northern route through Indiana in order to blunt competition from Louisville. Canal companies were chartered by the state legislatures of both Kentucky and Indiana in 1805, but nothing came of either effort. In 1808, the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin suggested national funding for a Kentucky-side canal. The United States Senate passed bills to this effect in 1810 and 1811, but both died from Democratic opposition in the House. Gen. William Lytle II, founder of Cincinnati, laid out Portland in 1811 and sold lots in order to finance his own canal project. The Indiana Canal Company, that state's second effort, was chartered in 1818 and made preliminary excavations using private and state funds. The failure of a dam and the Panic of 1819 ended the attempt. Rumors that the Indiana dam had been sabotaged arose from the risk a canal posed to much of Louisville's economy, including not only forwarding, storage, drayage, and shipping but also provisioning, financing, hotels, and entertainment. Against this, however, some locals argued for the benefit a canal would provide to local manufacturing.

Privately held company

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