Tenessee-Tombigbee waterway

Tennessee, 1985

The 234-mile Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway  was formally inaugurated by Secretary of the Army John O. Marsh Jr., capping up more than a century of planning and 14 years of construction.
Mr. Marsh and Alabama Representative Tom Bevill, a Democrat, spun a wheel that symbolized mixed waters of the 23 states covered by the $2 billion canals that connect the Tennessee River Valley to the Gulf of Mexico.
The waterway reopened to business in January 1985, two years ahead of plan. It links the Tennessee River at Pickwick Dam on the Mississippi-Tennessee border with the Warrior-Tombigbee River in Demopolis, Alabama. The canal cuts 800 miles off the river path to the Gulf of Mexico by joining two rivers in northern Mississippi. 
The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers from 1972 to 1985, is a 234-mile roadway that runs from the Tennessee River to the Black Warrior-Tombigbee River system in Demopolis, Alabama. It connects commercial navigation from the country's center to the Gulf of Mexico. The notion was first advocated during the colonial period, but it did not receive significant consideration until the introduction of steamboat commerce in the early nineteenth century. Engineers studied a proposed canal route in 1875 but delivered a negative report and cost estimates as too expensive. 
Until Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, enthusiasm for the idea waned. The project, revived in 1938, was included in the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1946. The Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway Development Authority, an interstate compact led by the governors of Tennessee and four other states, aided the project in 1958. Still, it faced further delays due to financing constraints and legal challenges. Finally, in December 1972, the building began.
The work on the project, the Corps' most extensive history, was divided between the Mobile and Nashville Districts. The Mobile District took over the 168-mile river segment with four locks and dams between Demopolis and Amory, Mississippi, and a 45-mile portion with five locks from Amory to Bay Springs. The Nashville District was in charge of designing and building the 40-mile divide segment from Bay Springs Lock & Dam to the Tennessee River. Although the northern part is shorter in length, it contains almost half of the 307 million cubic yards of soil removed. The excavation reached a depth of 175 feet. With the most significant lift of the ten locks built, Bay Springs Lock bridged 84 of the 341-foot gap between Pickwick Lake and the river. Employees in Nashville also relocated two railways, purchased 28,400 acres of property, and evacuated around 170 residents from the region. Under the direction of Euclid Moore and Richard Russell, the Nashville District effectively encountered and handled construction problems linked to engineering and environmental issues in the early years of the project. 
Groundwater removal, erosion and sedimentation, soil disposal, and revegetation were among them.  Major excavation began in 1978 but was slowed by severe rain and rising fuel prices. The following year, work on the Bay Springs Lock started too. Despite a succession of tight congressional funding votes and numerous judicial challenges from environmental and railroad interests, work on the Divide portion continued.
The Nashville District's Divide portion was dedicated in May 1984, while the Mobile District's event took place a year later. Construction, real estate purchase, relocations, and labor expenditures totaled approximately two billion dollars.