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An important early American engineering map documenting the Falls of the Ohio River at the boundary between Kentucky and Indiana, with detailed plans for the proposed Louisville and Portland Canal, locks, and associated hydraulic infrastructure. The plan offers a sophisticated visualization of how the U.S. government and private investors hoped to tame the river’s only significant natural barrier to navigation between Pittsburgh and the Mississippi.
The map centers on the stretch of the Ohio River between Louisville and Shippingport on the Kentucky side, and Jeffersonville and Clarksville on the Indiana side. The course of the canal is shown running parallel to the south bank of the river, bypassing the rapids that cascade around Goose Island, Corn Island, and Rock Island. The map captures both natural features (reefs, banks, elevation contours) and manmade elements (gridded city plans, shipyards, and the route of the proposed canal and locks).
Three inset diagrams at the top and bottom provide detailed technical profiles of the proposed lock systems, canal slope, and water elevation management, essential engineering data meant to accompany Congressional deliberations and Army Corps of Engineers assessments. These include cross-sectional and longitudinal profiles with dense explanatory text, almost certainly adapted from Latrobe’s original engineering proposals.
The plate was originally engraved for Congressional use in 1807, during the earliest wave of federal infrastructure planning under Jefferson and Gallatin. That edition is now virtually unobtainable due to the destruction of many early federal records during the British burning of the Capitol in 1814. The current example is from the 1833 reprint series authorized by Congress to preserve selected maps and reports from the first fourteen Congresses. This edition closely follows the 1807 engraving, retaining all original detail.
A foundational document in the history of American inland navigation, the Louisville and Portland Canal was one of the first major U.S. infrastructure projects, predating the Erie Canal by nearly two decades. Its eventual completion in 1830 transformed Louisville into a critical transshipment point and helped define the commercial geography of the interior.
![(Chicago - Ante-Fire Imprint) The Landowner a Journal of Real Estate, Vol. II, No. 7 (July, 1870) [with 5 maps:] Town of Frankfort, on Lake Michigan; Residence Property on Humboldt Park; Indianapolis; Emporia, Kansas; Columbus, Kentucky.](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/112484.jpg)
