The Mussel Shoals Canal.

The Mussel Shoals Canal.

The completion in the fall of 1890 of the _____nal around the Mussel Shoals in the Tennessee river opened to the commerce of the Tennessee valley an unobstructed navigable waterway from Chattanooga, Tenn., by way of Paducah, Ky., and the Mississippi to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. The importance of the improvement to the industries of that region can hardly be overestimated. Rich in mineral deposits, already 800,000 tons of pig-iron are annually produced in the country drained by the Tennessee and its tributaries, while it affords an almost inexhaustible supply of timber of nearly every variety. Its resources of copper, coal, zinc, marble, slate and building stone are practically without limit, and the small fruits and produce grown upon its fertile fields are plentiful and unsurpassed in quality. Developing rapidly as the commerce of this favored region has already of late done, the effect upon it of the opening of this new free highway to the world’s markets can be readily appreciated.

While as early as 1831 a small canal was constructed around a part of the shoals, it was subsequently given up as inadequate to the demands of the river commerce, and it was not until 1867 that the government seriously turned its attention to the work which has just been finished.