Texas Surveyor's Manuscript Notebooks with Sketches
Six volumes of field notebooks with surveyor's sketch maps, cross sections, bridges, for a Trinity River Survey some ten miles below Dallas. The survey was apparently related to ongoing efforts to improve Trinity River navigation in the 1890s, specifically to open up a harbor connection for transporting cotton.
Trinity River Canalization Projects
The Trinity River Navigation Company was established in 1891 to promote the cause of navigation on the Trinity. The company constructed a temporary dam thirteen miles south of Dallas at McCommas Bluff. The company's efforts helped achieve the River and Harbor Act of June 13, 1902 which appropriated $125,000 for the construction of locks and dams and for the removal of obstructions to navigation. WWII interrupted the work,
The debate over a proposed channelization of the river continued until 1973, when a bond proposal that would turn the Trinity into a barge canal connecting Dallas with the Gulf of Mexico was defeated by voters in the counties along the river. Yet after 1921, not one dollar of federal funds was spent on any project solely designed to canalize the Trinity. Millions were spent on the river, but these projects were designed primarily for flood control with navigation of secondary importance. Even today, navigation of the Trinity is still discussed, but over 150 years after the first steamboat made the trip upstream to Dallas, the Trinity is very much the same river today as it was then - Mitchell.
The notebooks almost certainly relate to the above efforts, either funded by a private company or contracted by the government. They include sketches and details of some of the fourteen bridges that crossed Trinity between Dallas and Magnolia, as well as the series of locks and dams.
- F. Oppikofer. Trinity River Survey. F. Oppikofer, Asst. Eng. Commerce and Obstructions to Navigation. Nov: Dec: 1894 & Jan. 1895
- Number and description of Shoals, Trinity River from Dallas to Magnolia. Nov. to Dec. 1894 and Jan. 1895
- Trinity River Cross Sections, Soundings & Bridges. Wilmer bridge near Dallas. Trinity Navigation Company.
- W. C. Neel, surveyor. Lock & Dam No. 7, Trinity River, Texas. Daily Log Book.
- Lock & Dam No. 2, Trinity River, Texas. Daily Log Book No. 4.
- Trinity River Survey, General Index, Dallas, Sta. 1081. 1912-16.
- Journal Lock & Dam Survey 24-34 1915