If you ever find yourself looking for ways to get into nature in central Florida, the Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway offers an array of well-maintained trails for hiking, biking, and horseback riding, along with plentiful kayak and canoe routes, all easily accessible and open to the public.
It’s likely, however, that many people enjoying these trails are unaware of the tumultuous events that led to the greenway’s creation: the failed attempt to build a canal across Florida.
The story begins in the 16th century, when Spanish colonizers sought an alternative route for their ships to traverse Florida without encountering pirates and coastal storms. Thus, the idea for a canal across the peninsula was born. In the early 19th century, American politicians thought along similar lines for transporting timber and cotton, though a series of studies determined it would be too costly and too difficult, and by then railroads were effectively moving cargo around the state.
However, the idea of creating an easier way to ship goods from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean lingered into the 20th century. Finally, in 1935, as part of a jobs creation effort in his New Deal, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized $5 million in federal funds to begin construction of the Cross Florida Barge Canal (original plans for a deeper shipping canal had been scrapped due to saltwater intrusion issues). Thousands of men looking for work in the midst of the Great Depression soon arrived in Ocala, and 5,000 acres were quickly cleared. Within a few years, however, construction stalled, mainly due to funding issues.
Interest in the project was seriously revived during the Cold War, largely for national security reasons, as a canal would ensure that American shipping traffic could avoid approaching Cuba. The planned route was to start at the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, on the Atlantic Coast, then the manmade portion would be cut across the state south of Ocala, bisecting the Ocklawaha and Withlacoochee Rivers.
The revived construction effort, which was to include a series of locks and dams, began at Palatka in 1964 (President Lyndon Johnson oversaw the groundbreaking by triggering a massive explosion), and progress was made on the section between the St Johns and Ocklawaha Rivers. Another small portion on the Gulf coast, near Yankeetown, was also constructed.
Yet significant opposition to the plan, largely on environmental grounds, would eventually derail the project. Marjorie Harris Carr, a passionate defender of the Ocklawaha River and surrounding ecosystems, was among the concerned Florida citizens who led an effort to stop the canal. Carr enlisted the help of geologists, zoologists, hydrologists, and many other scientists to demonstrate how much damage the canal would cause to Florida’s wetlands and native species. They also outlined the potential risks to the human population, such as the possibility of groundwater contamination. Another convincing argument was that Floridians wouldn’t benefit significantly from the canal, with the real financial advantages going to other parties, like the Texas oil industry.
In 1970, a federal judge sided with the environmental groups, issuing an injunction to pause construction. Shortly afterward, President Richard M. Nixon decided to cancel the project, of which around 48 miles (28% of the planned route) had been completed. Around $74 million had already been spent.
Though construction stopped in January 1971, the Cross Florida Barge Canal wasn’t officially deauthorized by Congress until 1990. Even after the project was halted, Marjorie Harris Carr continued to work towards protecting and restoring the ecosystems that had been damaged by canal and dam construction. She was particularly fervent in her desire to restore a free-flowing Ocklawaha River.
Carr’s legacy as one of Florida’s most important environmental defenders is forever linked with the areas she sought to protect. In 1998, a year after her death at age 82, she became the namesake of the Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway, a 110-mile, 70,000-acre green belt corridor of protected land stretching across the state along the planned canal route.
The canal that never came:
- Though the environmentalists ultimately “won,” many acres of natural landscape, especially around the Ocklawaha River basin, had been leveled in the 1960s with a powerful machine known as a “crusher-crawler.”
- The original 1930s canal project caused irreparable harm in other ways. Most notably, the thriving African-American community of Santos, located around six miles south of Ocala, was destroyed in order to build Camp Roosevelt, which became housing for the canal workers. The town’s residents were forced out through eminent domain or were paid a pittance for the loss of their homes and businesses.
- The canal construction was also a dark time for labor rights. In 1936, a young labor organizer named George Timmerman was brutally assaulted and tied to a tree in the woods after coming to Ocala to check that the workers were being well-treated and fairly compensated.
