USA > Kentucky > History of Kentucky, Volume II > Part 24
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Governor Desha in 1825 urged "the speedy commencement of a gen- eral system of internal improvements." Believing that Louisville, on account of the assured construction of a canal around the falls of the Ohio there, must become the great center of commerce in the state, he was prepared to make some definite proposals. He would have two great turnpike roads constructed from this point out into the state, the one to pass through Frankfort and on to Maysville, and the other to pass southward across the middle section through the Green River coun- try and on toward Nashville, Tennessee. That state, he believed, might be counted on to continue the road from the state line. At the same time these two great highways were being built, feeder roads diverging into the other parts of the state might be started.7 He was strongly in favor of this road system and, since nothing had resulted from his first sug- gestion, he recurred to the subject the next year. To avoid the opposi- tion and hostility of towns that might be left out, he let it be known that he was not wedded to any particular route, just so the main purpose was served. The road might pass through Frankfort, Lexington, and Paris ; or, if it should be desired to make it as direct as possible, it might be changed to end in any good landing place on the upper Ohio, as, for instance, Augusta, and be run through Frankfort, Georgetown, and Cyn-
3 Niles' Register, Vol. 9, p. 319; Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 518.
4 Niles' Register, Vol. 13, p. 388.
6 Louisville Public Advertiser, Dec. 15, 1818.
6 Niles' Register, Vol. 13, P. 321.
" Ibid., Vol. 29, p. 223.
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thiana. Believing that the subject of internal improvements and schools could be made auxiliary to each other, he suggested that the school fund be invested in the turnpike roads, "and the net profits arising from tolls on these roads be forever sacredly devoted to the interests of edu- cation." 8
Although the state government during this period did not find it desirable to aid generally road building, it passed numerous acts con- cerning old lines and incorporating a host of private stock companies, which thrived for a while and then ceased to exist. In the session of 1815-1816 the old Wilderness Road received attention. A law was passed to aid the construction and repairing of small roads branching out from the main road, by giving to these roads respectively one-half of all the tolls collected from those travelers passing off upon these roads.9 For the purpose of constructing new roads, two companies were incorpo- rated the following year. The capital stock of each was fixed at $350,000, in shares of $100. At least nothing should be lost by setting aside 500 shares in each company for the state, to be subscribed and paid for in any way the Legislature saw fit. This was an invitation, however, which the state did not accept. One of these companies was to construct its road from Lexington to Louisville, and the other from Lexington through Paris and Washington to Maysville.10 The former company passed through a transformation which came to be typical of many other turn- pike companies thereafter ; it was broken up into small companies, each with a section of the road to construct. Three new companies resulted in this instance, namely: The Lexington and Frankfort, the Frankfort and Shelbyville, and the Shelbyville and Louisville. The latter (Lexing- ton and Maysville) was in fact a link in a long trace which had been used from early times, leading from Zanesville to New Orleans, and links of which had long come to be known as Zane's Trace and the Natchez Trace. Long before the legislation on the Maysville Road which pro- duced Jackson's famous veto, Kentucky had in 1812 asked Congress to convert this long trace into a good road, particularly in Kentucky's case to accommodate her numerous traders who floated their flatboats to New Orleans and had to return this way.11 It was in pursuance of this idea of making this great interstate road that Kentucky in 1821 made her first appropriations to aid a road. She appropriated $1,000 for this purpose to the portion lying southward from Lexington toward the Ten- nessee line, "owing to the thinness of the population in the neighborhood and to the quantity of labor requisite to put in repair that part of the great highway leading from the northwest of the Ohio and upper settle- ments of this state to the states of Tennessee and Alabama and the Or- leans country." 12
An ever growing amount of turnpike legislation came in each suc- ceeding Legislature for many years hereafter. New companies were incorporated to build roads in every direction, and old companies were amended and abolished. The same Legislature that split the Lexington and Louisville company into three separate companies also chartered four other companies. These were the Louisville and Portland, Fayette and Madison, Georgetown and Lexington, and Georgetown and Frank- fort companies.13 The next year the link between Georgetown and Cin- cinnati was incorporated, and the Louisville and Bardstown Company saw the light.14 In 1818 a rather more ambitious project was set on foot
8 Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 538.
9 Acts of Kentucky, 1815, 611.
10 Acts of Kentucky, 1816, pp. 179-199; Kentucky Gazette, December 16, 1816.
11 Ibid., 1811, p. 256.
12 Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 538.
13 Acts of Kentucky, 1817, pp. 478-545.
14 Ibid., 1818, pp. 721-725.
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to build a road from Mount Sterling through Prestonsburg to the interior of Virginia. This would give a short and direct route to the East-an idea which became a hobby for railroad companies to play with for a half century. The governor was instructed to correspond with the gov- ernor of Virginia for aid and concerted action.15 A plethora of acts soon came appointing commissioners "to view" certain routes for the purpose of selecting the best course.16
Soon state aid began to creep in as if by stealth and without system. In the 1822-1823 session the Legislature permitted a lottery to be held for the purpose of opening a road from the Beaver Iron Works to Pres- tonsburg.17 This was permitted as an aid to the iron industry. Another method of aiding came in the form of land grants to counties which were building roads. In 1831, 2,000 acres was given to Casey County and $200 worth of land warrants donated to Clay and Perry counties.18 But the most direct and important aid was given to the project which had already received state aid in another region. This was the Mays- ville-Lexington link of the great interstate highway. This road, which had been reincorporated in 1827, with the invitation to Kentucky and the United States to subscribe $100,000, received $50,000 from the former and, before it was finished, $150,000 more.19 At the same time the state also subscribed $15,000 to the Shelbyville and Louisville road.20
The period from 1820 to about 1828 was lean in internal improvement projects ; the people were too busy with hard times and relief, banks and court troubles.21 But with the return of prosperity, a flood of turnpike companies greeted the people. In 1828 the approach of good times was heralded in nine new turnpike companies and the following toast given at a Lexington meeting: "May our manufactures be consumed, our canals locked up, our roads railed, our rivers damned, and our ships blasted to the remotest ends of the earth." 22 Laws were piled up each year until, in the session of 1835-1836, at least eighty acts were passed on roads, streams, or railroads. The people were becoming thoroughly aroused to a general scheme of internal improvements where all roads and streams could be coordinated. The wealth of the state could be unlocked in no other way. Governor Metcalfe in 1831 called upon the Legislature to consider the matter and at the same time called the attention of the state to the true source of its wealth : "It is believed to be a sound maxim in political economy, that national wealth consists in the most enlarged and varied capacity to acquire the necessaries and comforts of life. The ancient but fugitive theory by which the minds of many have been be- wildered, that national wealth consisted in accumulations over and above the annual consumption, has long since been exploded. All practical statesmen now admit that hoarded accumulations, without a market, are valueless and will soon perish. Whatever that saves labor or time is admitted to be productive of wealth. Whatever facilitates and cheapens
15 Ibid., 1818, pp. 603, 604, 794, 795.
16 Committees were appointed for "viewing" the following roads in 1820: From Knox County by way of Williamsburg to the Tennessee line, Frankfort to the Ohio River opposite Neville, and Danville to the Tennessee line. Acts of Kentucky, 1820, pp. 101, 133-135, 163, 164. The next year roads were to be "viewed" from Frankfort, to Bowling-Green, Bowling-Green to the mouth of Clover Creek, and from Lexing- ton to Ghent on the Ohio. Ibid., 1822, pp. 211, 212, 212-214, 190-192.
17 Acts of Kentucky, 1822, p. 92. The first lottery permitted for road purposes was in 1811. Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 539.
18 Ibid., 1831, pp. 77-81.
19 Acts of Kentucky, 1826, pp. 81-95; Ibid., 1827, 88, 239, 240. Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 538-540.
20 Niles' Register, Vol. 37, P. 427.
21 Compare the state acts during this period with those for periods directly preced- ing and following.
22 Niles' Register, Vol. 34, P. 337; Acts of Kentucky, 1828, passim. In 1827 roads had begun to be "viewed" again.
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the process of exchanging one commodity for another increases the capacity to produce; enriches the nation; adds to her offensive and de- fensive strength; diffuses comfort and happiness and joy amongst her own citizens; increases their love of home; affords them leisure for the cultivation of the mind; enables them to mingle without defined limit in the affairs of active practical life; exalts their character and that of the state to the loftiest summit of human elevation." 23
With Federal aid to internal improvements definitely checked under the Jackson regime and with little real progress being made apart from the endless process of setting up companies which never did anything, the people were gradually goaded by the exigencies of the times into a definite program. In 1835 a Board of Internal Improvements was set up, consisting of the governor and four other members, whose duty it was to employ competent engineers to survey turnpikes and streams, de- termine upon what should be done, coordinate rivers and roads, and subscribe for the state stock in these projects-generally from one-half to two-thirds. In order to produce results as soon as possible and to show that this was not a mere legal gesture, $1,000,000 was appropriated to carry on the work.24 Enthusiasm had now produced action, and both were strongly in the air. Governor Morehead said: "So astonishing, however, are the resources of our favored country, so unparalleled the energies of its citizens, that while we are busied in our speculations con- cerning a given enterprise, calculated from its magnitude to strike us with wonder, we may almost lift our eyes on its rapid accomplishment." 23
A veritable rebirth was predicted for the state. Niles declared that a "noble spirit of internal improvements is abroad in Kentucky," and that much had already been done in the creation of the board, "and more will be speedily accomplished," and the Commentator had rosy visions for the future: "Who can predict the aspect Kentucky will present when her streams become permanently navigable, and when all her roads through the interior become commodious channels of trade? The day is fast approaching when the difficulties of transportation and travel which have been encountered by this community will live in tradition only, and be listened to with incredulity by the rising generation. Not long ago it was at many seasons of the year a hard day's ride from Frank- fort to Shelbyville, a distance of twenty-two miles, while for wheel car- riages the road was absolutely impassable. The road from Frankfort to Maysville, the great thoroughfare of the state, was in the same condi- tion. Now at all seasons, and in day or night, large and commodious coaches pass with safety and rapidity. Such in a few years we hope will be the situation of all the leading highways of the country. We have begun the good work, it is true, at a late day; but this consideration should only stimulate to greater efforts in order to enable us to overtake those states who have got so many years the start of us." 26
The Board of Internal Improvements immediately set to work to sur- vey the numerous rivers of the state, determining on what improvements should be made and estimating the cost. As very little had been done by private companies on the rivers, this work engaged the attention of the board before the turnpikes. The first important survey was carried out on the Green and Barren rivers, and supplementing the little that had been done previously, the state spent on these rivers by 1836 more than $125,000. This work had been carried forward before the Kentucky River had been taken up, and before it ceased to spend money upon them almost $1,000,000 had been used up. The Kentucky River was
23 Niles' Register, Vol. 41, p. 253.
24 American Almanac, 1836; Niles' Register, Vol. 48, p. 17; Verhoeff, Kentucky River Navigation, 19.
25 Argus, Jan. 7, 1835.
26 Quoted in Niles' Register, Vol. 48, p. 75.
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in many respects the most important waterway in the state. It afforded an outlet for the rich Blue Grass region and some of its tributaries tapped the mountainous section of the eastern part of the state. The estimated cost of making this system navigable was more than $2,225,000, or a cost of nearly $9,000 a mile. The state actually expended $901,932. The Licking River was also of great importance, as it ran from the moun- tains across the central Blue Grass region into the Ohio at Cincinnati. Nearly $375,000 was expended on this river. Surveys were made and various amounts of money were also spent on the following streams : Cumberland, Rockcastle, Little, Salt, Little Sandy, Big Sandy and tribu- taries of the larger streams.27
As heretofore stated, canals, as compared with rivers and turnpikes, played a very slight part in the internal improvements program of the state. Outside of the canal around the falls of the Ohio at Louisville, none of any importance was built. Wherever they were suggested, it was merely for connecting links between rivers or for avoiding rapids. A canal for joining two important river systems was surveyed in 1837 between the Goose Creek Salt Works and Cumberland Ford. This would make a continuous waterway between the Kentucky River and the Cum- berland River, thus affording a circuitous route from Northern and Central Kentucky through the mountains of the southeastern part of the state, down the Cumberland through Tennessee and on up through the western part of Kentucky into the Ohio above Paducah. Perhaps the most interesting and certainly the most ambitious long-distance waterway scheme was the Inter-State Canal between Kentucky and Georgia. This was merely another form of the ambitious project that had been engag- ing the attention of Calhoun and other Southern statesmen in connecting the Atlantic with the Ohio, their plan being to build a railroad. This was a recognition of one of the most important single factors in Kentucky commerce, namely, the ever-increasing amount of trade that was passing through Cumberland Gap for the South. This project was among the first suggested by the Board of Internal Improvements. This system was to begin in the Kentucky River and continue up the South Fork and Goose Creek to the salt works, and thence by means of a canal to the Cumberland River and up this river and Yellow Creek to the region of Cumberland Gap. A tunnel was to be constructed through the moun- tains here into Powell River which should be followed downward into the Clinch and Tennessee rivers, and thence up into the Hiwassee, from the headwaters of which a canal should be run into the Savannah. The report declared: "Such a canal would outflank the whole chain of the Appalachian Mountains on the southwest, and, in the course of its ex- tent, would cross the various noble rivers-Coosa, Chattahoochie, Oconee, etc .- which, taking their rise in the chain of the Appalachians, flow into the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, between the cities of Charles- ton and New Orleans. This would throw open to the commerce of the counties bordering on the Ohio River a choice among the numerous markets presented by the vast extent of cotton country, independently of the facilities it would offer for reaching the northeastern cities or European ports, through the ports of Savannah and Charleston." It was furthermore claimed that the cost would be much less than turnpike con- struction and that the "most perfect kind of canal can be constructed for one-half the cost of the most perfect railroad." 28
The canal project around the falls in the Ohio at Louisville, which had so persistently engaged the attention of Kentuckians, but which had
27 Various acts of the Legislature during the period should be consulted for the multifarious details and Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 544-550 for more general points.
28 Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 548, 549; Verhoeff, Kentucky River Naviga- tion, 104-106.
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so signally failed to interest the other states along the Ohio or Congress, was at length taken up again in 1825 by a private company incorporated under the name of the "Louisville and Portland Canal Company," and was unhampered by any joint control through state or national owner- ship of stock. The capital stock of $600,000 was subscribed before the end of the year; and four years later the capitalization was increased to $700,000. Work was immediately pushed forward, and on December 21, 1829, the first boat, the Uncas, went through the canal. This set the beginning of a new era on the Ohio. Traffic was now open and unim- peded from Pittsburg to New Orleans, and this barometric gauge at Louisville gave a true insight into the commercial prosperity at any time of the great interior region. In less than a decade more than 1,500 steamboats and over 500 flat and keel boats went through this canal annually, carrying cargoes of over 300,000 tons. It was a success from the start, financially and otherwise. Even before it was finished its great value as a revenue producer was foretold, and Governor Desha bemoaned the fact that it was not a state undertaking: "It must be a subject of perpetual regret to every patriotic mind that the state did not, with her own resources, undertake the construction of the canal at Louisville. It would have been an imperishable fund-a source of revenue as lasting as the Ohio River itself-which would have enabled the government to accomplish the most extensive and useful plans without increasing the burdens of the people." But the Federal Government had been pre- vailed upon to invest in the canal, first, $100,000 in 1826 (made possible by forfeited stock) and later additional amounts. Tolls at times were considered too excessive, and so in 1842 the Legislature sought to have the whole ownership vested in the city, state and nation. The first two now refused, the latter, through a long series of transactions and ex- penditures, finally secured complete control of the canal and made it free in 1874.29
The activity of private companies in building turnpikes and in pro- jecting a great many more was immediately heightened by the inaugura- tion of state aid through the Board of Internal Improvements. The Legislature that saw this board set up produced a veritable flood of turn- pike charters. This process was continued with fluctuations, due to the varying degrees of prosperity of the state, down until the Civil war began. During the period of the conflict there was a complete cessation, but immediately on the coming of peace a renewed interest came. How- ever, another method of developing the state's resources was appearing as early as the '30s, paralleling river improvement and turnpike building for a decade or more and then almost completely swallowing up these activities. This was the railroad, to be noted hereafter. The turnpike system, aided and partly owned by the state, branched out in every direc- tion from the main pivots of Maysville, Lexington and Louisville. From the first point roads ran to Lexington, into Bracken County, and to Mount Sterling. Louisville sent out her tenacles in two long lines to the Tennessee line in each instance. The first road ran through Bardstown and Glasgow, whereas the other veered farther westward by way of the mouth of Salt River and then through Elizabethtown and Bowling Green. Feeder roads ran out from these trunk lines at several points. But to Lexington went the honor and advantage of being the center of the whole system, of which fact she was justly proud and not slow to boast. An enthusiastic Lexingtonian declared: "We have now seven Turnpike roads and one rail road terminating at this City. A greater
29 Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 47, 551-553; Timothy Flint, History and Geog- raphy of the Mississippi Valley (Cincinnati, 1833), Third Edition, I, 359; Niles' Reg- ister, Vol. 19, p. 170; Vol. 35, P. 387; Vol. 42, p. 82. Report on Louisville and Port- land Canal, in Miscellaneous Documents of the House of Representatives, in No. 83, 40 cong. 2 sess.
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number, we believe, than in any city in the world. And when the Charles- ton rail road, and the Tates-creek road, the Russel road and the Hamp's mill roads shall be Macadamized, which must be done in a few years, we defy the earth to exceed us in the variety and pleasantness of the travel from Lexington." 30
As compared to Louisville or Maysville, Lexington had a distinct ad- vantage in the road network, since the former two were situated on the Ohio River and, of course, could develop roads only southward. The rivalry of these principal cities which was later expressed so strenuously on various subjects was now breaking forth in the efforts to secure the location of turnpikes, as well as to secure priority the completion of cer- tain turnpikes. Lexington was especially desirous of pushing the road through to Covington as soon as possible, and thereby make connections with Cincinnati, whereas both Maysville and Louisville wished to hasten their connection by turnpike with that city. As a point in their argument, they claimed that Lexington might well use the road by the way of Louis- ville or Maysville when those connections were completed. Lexington, with much justice, resented these suggestions: "We do not believe it good policy for a citizen of Lexington who had no business at either Louisville or Maysville to go by either of those cities to Cincinnati." 31 The principal state roads leading out of the Blue Grass city were: To Maysville, to Danville and Lancaster, to Harrodsburg and Perryville, to Winchester, to Richmond, to Versailles and Frankfort, and to George- town and Covington.
Whether wisely or not, the state had launched out onto an internal improvement program which had been carried forward in no weak fashion. Rivers were improved and many turnpikes projected and built. Locks and dams were erected in the former and snags and other impedi- ments removed ; the main turnpikes were macadamized and graded from thirty to fifty feet wide. Summing up the achievements at that time, Governor Owsley said in 1844: "Eight hundred and ninety-eight miles of roads which were formerly in many places difficult to pass, and in some seasons impassable, have been converted into graded and McAdam- ized highways, over which every class of carriages of burthen and of pleasure pass with ease and convenience at all times; and streams which were formerly incapable of being navigated, except in time of flood, have been converted into rivers navigable at all times, 363 miles * * * " 32 It was not, however, without tremendous expense to the state that these improvements had been made. Besides the initial appropriation of $1,000,000 made when the Board of Internal Improvements was set up, the state at frequent intervals made large additions. By 1839 there was a bonded indebtedness on account of internal improvements of $1,765,- 000. By the outbreak of the Civil war, the state had an indebtedness for rivers and roads of almost $4,500,000.33
The state had in fact spent money lavishly on these improvements and often without proper evaluation of returns and general results. In the contagion of the enthusiasm at the beginning, estimates of the cost of construction of projects were made in a perfunctory way and in amounts far smaller than the actual cost. It was estimated that the cost per mile of rendering the Green and Barren rivers navigable would be slightly over $1,200, but the actual cost turned out to be more than $5,000. The engineer, drunk with the spirit of the times, boldly asserted
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