Gulf Intracoastal Waterway

Texas's share of the waterway was assembled by Congress in pieces. In 1892 it authorized extending a shallow channel behind Galveston Island to Christmas Point in Oyster Bay. In 1897 it authorized buying the eleven-mile canal the Brazos Navigation Company owned, linking Oyster Bay to the Brazos, and the purchase closed in 1902. The Handbook says Spindletop's oil spurred further work, and in 1905 Clarence Holland and others founded the league now called the Gulf Intracoastal Canal Association. The channel reached Corpus Christi Bay by 1941 and the Brownsville ship channel by 1949.

What the plaque says

Gulf Intracoastal Waterway This complex of barge canals and natural channels-- most valuable waterway in America-- stretches 1,116 mi. from Brownsville, Texas, to St. Mark's, Florida. Is longer, carries more tonnage than Suez and Panama canals. Is a vital link in economy of Texas and has been one of main causes of rapid development of Gulf Coast area. The canal system was begun in 1854 when a short canal was built from Galveston Bay to mouth of Brazos River as aid to Texas trade; it was 50 ft. wide, 3.5 ft. deep and dug by hand-labor and mule teams. Later projects widened, lengthened canal along the coast. Most important period in growth of the waterway system was result of determined efforts by two Texas businessmen, Clarence S. E. Holland and Roy Miller. In 1905-07 these men organized the initial financial support, arranged construction and won congressional backing for canal improvements. By 1966 annual total tonnage of the waterway exceeded 78,500,000 tons. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 7.5 mi
  Coastal prairie, salt marsh and bays between Freeport and Christmas Bay, where an auto tour along Big Slough passes wintering geese, ducks and wading birds in the tens of thousands.
• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 22 mi
  A sugar and cotton plantation on the San Bernard River whose enslaved builders and their descendants left one of the best-preserved African American archeological sites in Texas.
• Galveston Island State Park — 26 mi
  A cattle ranch willed to the state that now runs the full width of Galveston Island, from two miles of Gulf beach across dunes and prairie to the marshes of West Galveston Bay.
• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 26 mi
  A Brazos sugar plantation built by enslaved people for the Patton family, later leased convict labor and Hogg family oil, now told through Rachel Patton and Sarah Ford.

More markers nearby

• Sinking Site of the Blockade Runner "Acadia" — steps away
• Velasco — steps away
• Old Velasco, C. S. A. — steps away
• The Lively — 1.0 mi