| A Navigable Stream No Longer |
| By Michael L. Dixon
|
| Part III |
| This week we conclude the County's Posts three-part series on Elkton's waterfront. After the turn-of-the-century, commercial boating on the Big Elk Creek was becoming a thing of the past; the wharves at Elkton would soon be silent. Freight was being brought in by rail, and the stream was filling up with silt. |
| Ulysses S. Grant was president when Congress first appropriated funds to remove sediment from beneath the waters of the Big Elk Creek. The last time federally funded workmen scooped mud out of the estuary Woodrow Wilson was president. |
| What was the problem? The Big Elk Creek was filling with sediment, much of it silt carried down stream during freshets. This left Elkton with a narrow, meandering stream that was navigable only with great difficult. Large vessels, the ones conveying shipments for Elkton' industries, were delayed at Elk Landing awaiting a favorable tide. |
| In 1874, when congress first financed the removal of a century's worth of silt from the Creek, workers dredged a channel six feet deep (low tide). Next year, the "mud machine" was back, scooping out more clay, sand, and stone. A particularly big year was 1882. Money ($6,500) was spent on removing an old wooden dike, in shaping up the creek bank, in removing two old piers of a railroad wharf at Frenchtown, in dredging, and in widening the channel. |
| The Last Federal Improvements |
| Shortly after the nation entered World War I (1917), federal improvements last took place. Shortly afterwards, government engineers advocated discontinuation of the undertaking; the channel couldn't be maintained at a reasonable cost, they said. Between 1874 and 1917, federal expenditures amounted to $130,028. |
| It was practically a biennial project and many of the intervening years found contractors at work on the course. What did the engineers think of these initiatives? After a few years experience with the hydrology here, they concluded that an open channel couldn't be maintained. "Some other method was necessary! After dredging the river, it shoals rapidly until it has returned to approximately its original regiment, after which it maintains itself at its natural depth," one official wrote. |
| Still, "local interests" hadn't given up and assorted strategies were attempted. One idea: move the bridge over the creek up to Bow Street and have that street connect with the Chesapeake City Road. Additional wharfage facilities was the aim. For a time after the government stopped work, the pulp mill funded the "mud machine." A turning basin for steamboats near the Bridge Street bridge, originally dug out in 1871, was rederedged in 1917. |
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| Citizens petitioned Congress to redredge the Creek in 1924. After examining the problem, the engineers concluded no further expenditures should be made. The reasoning: ". . . the demonstrated impossibility of securing a permanent channel in Elk River and the disproportionate expense of maintenance, as well as the fact that such a channel if provided, is largely for the benefit of a single industrial concern." |
| Commercial interests were abandoning the Creek in the 1900s. The "boat-building yard on the Little Elk has been abandoned, as has also the steamboat line to the wharf at the Bridge Street bridge," a report noted in 1918. By 1911, the boatyard was in Chesapeake City. In 1918, a fire destroyed the fertilizer company. Steamboats last came to Elkton in 1917. Jessup & Moore (formerly Radnor) Paper Co. remained, though. |
| What caused the swift shoaling? Wash from the steep watershed above tidewater, silt from the pools of old mill dams which had washed away, and deposits from the pulp mill, the government theorized. "Soil run-off has increased because of the removal of surface growth," one official reckoned. |
| The Final Blow -- Route 40 |
| Then came the final blow! Route 40, the new dual highway south of town, was planned, and the "Roads Commission" wanted to construct a fixed span bridge over the Creek. A state survey showed water traffic for the past 20 years "has so decreased that it will not warrant the expense of a draw bridge," the Cecil Democrat reported in 1938. General opposition to a fixed span developed. It was, the Democrat editorialized, that "without a draw
bridge, the prospect of using the creek for industrial purposes would be killed forever." "If at some future date the community is able to utilize the water entrance to the town either for leisure or for business in a serious way, it would be very much against good policy for the bridge to be located as suggested," the Cecil County Star reasoned. Regardless, they built the fixed span bridge. |
| By-the-way, the Big Elk Creek has long been known for flooding. One storm blew through in 1893, and every low section of the town was inundated. Water submerged the wharves and Howard Street was underwater. Fifteen schooners lying at the wharves rode high on the water but were kept at their moorings. Fields were flooded over and several feet of water lay on Glasgow Road (Delaware Ave.). Does this sound familiar? |
| In bound, the morning of the downpour, the daily stage from Chesapeake City. It was on a tight schedule and the storm was at its height. Passengers and mail had to reach Elkton's P.W. & B. Depot in time for the morning
train, but the roadway was flooded over. So they got a boat at Holly Hall and "with much difficulty" they reached the depot in time. |
|
| That "mud machine" came back up the Big Elk Creek one last time between 1971-73; it was a state-funded machine. |
|
| That "mud machine" came back up the Big Elk Creek one last time between
1971-73; it was a state-funded machine. Elkton had secured a grant from
the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to build a "municipal marina"
on the old waterfront. Complete with dredging of the channel, a boat launch,
72 docking slips, and bulkhead, the low bid was $138,000, the Cecil Democrat
reported. |
| Today the waters of the Big Elk meander past Marina Park undisturbed. No longer do power boats, three masted schooners, tugs, or pleasure craft churn to and fro on Elkton's once crowded waterway. An occasional flood
disturbs the serenity, but not the whistle of the steamer or the shouts of dockhands! |
| End of the Series |
| Go to Part I |
| Go to Part II |
