Did you know? The Mississippi River floods of 1849 and 1850 created widespread damage and increased the growing national interest in flood control. âSwamp Actsâ passed by the U.S. Congress in 1849 and 1850 granted to the individual states all unsold swamp and overflowed lands within their limits. Under the provisions of the acts, funds produced from the sale of these lands by the states were to be applied to the building of drainage, reclamation and flood control projects. The states in the lower Mississippi Valley (not including Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee) received 31,890 square miles of land from the Federal Government. As might have been expected, however, this attempt to secure effective flood protection proved largely a failure. Those involved did not fully appreciate the enormity and engineering difficulties of the task; and due primarily to the lack of coordination made only ineffectual progress. Yet by 1858 the levees, though deficient in height and cross section, had reached the highest point of development which they were to attain for many years.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 18:40:32 +0000
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