HISTORY
NATIVE AMERICAN
About 400 million years
ago today’s site of Columbus, GA had an ocean view.
Crumpled mountains were formed when a piece of Africa broke off and crashed
into the mainland forming present day Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and
Carolina. As these once alp sized mountains eroded, many of their minerals
were leached, but leaving behind the iron that stains Piedmont clays orange
today. (Willoughby)
Today’s coastal plain was underwater for seventy-five million years. (Willoughby)
Today
the Chattahoochee begins high in the Blue Ridge Mountains at about 3500
feet. (Willoughby)
Around 1,000 B.C. the Indians of the Chattahoochee began to place great
significance on the burial of their dead, building enormous mounds requiring
thousands of hours of labor by the entire tribe. One of the largest of these
in the valley was constructed at the village of
Kolomoki.
It’s approximate population of 2,000 carried dirt to the mound basket by
basket, and required as many as 875,000 man hours to complete.
Oddly, no one knows what happened to this Woodland civilization. (Willoughby)
The
next age of man in the region, the Mississipian culture from 700 AD to 1400
were the first to systematically cultivate the land. Beans, squash, pumpkins
and most important, corn. There
are no less than 16 significant Mississipian sites along the Chattahoochee.
Six of these are in present day Alabama. Two in Houston
County
(Omussee Creek and Spann’s Landing) three near Eufala (Reeves, Lampley mound
and Lynn’s Fish Pond) and the
Abercrombie Mound in Russell
County. (Willoughby)
Clarence Bloomfield Moore documented 21 mound sites from Columbus, GA to the Appalachicola River.“At
the mouth of almost every one of the major streams there was a mound.” (Frank Schnell)
The
Creek Federation came about as a result of the ravages and epidemic that
swept through the tribes following the first contact with Europeans. The few
surviving members migrated forming new tribal groups and over time speaking
primarily Muscogean dialects. The
Europeans called this network of tribes (bound by trade, friendships and
defense pacts) the Creeks because of their tendency to locate their towns on
the banks of rivers. (Willoughby)
Spain
claimed the lands of the
Chattahoochee
and as British traders penetrated the region they responded to this threat
by burning Indian towns trading with the British.
16
miles south of present day Phenix City Spain built Fort
Appalachicola
in 1689. It was hoped to stop British traders and strengthen the alliance
with the Appalachicola Indians. However, the Indians simply moved to
Ocmulgee to continue trade and the fort was abandoned.
Coweta and Cuseta sat on opposite banks of the
Chattahoochee
Falls dividing the Piedmont and
Coastal Plains. The falls were named for the town of
Coweta which was the
political capital of the lower Creeks and sat south of present day Phenix City, just
one mile from the river. Thousands of Creek inhabitants lived here in the
the fifteen and sixteen hundreds. It was considered the capitial of politics
and war. Today, Alabama State Docks sits just north of the former
Coweta site.
Cusseta was the peace and religious capital on the eastern bank where Lawson
Air Field at Fort
Benning
sits today. Each of these two towns were the largest of the Lower Creek
Nation.
The Muscogees absorbed many tribes, partly through pacts and partly through
conquest. As European aggressions increased, this confederation grew
stronger out of a realization they had a common enemy. (Willoughby)
In
1826 the Creeks were forced to cede all lands east of the
Chattahoochee.
Eufaula in Alabama was still a Creek village at this time. As whites began
moving into this land as well, the Lower Creeks asked for help from US
Marshalls to remove the settlers. Soldiers at Fort
Mitchell
actually removed the new squatters, but two years later in 1828 a new treaty
would allow settlers into these western
Chattahoochee lands for
good.
Eventually the Creeks were pushed to war and burned the Georgia town of
Roanoke. In an effort to quell the uprising, Alabama militia soundly
defeated the Creeks at the Battle of Hobdy’s Bridge on the Pea
River (Choctawhatchee
Basin).
This resulted in the Treaty of Cusseta which permanently removed the Creeks
and other tribes from all lands east of the
Mississippi. Their tragic
removal is commonly known as the Trail of Tears.
ANTEBELLUM
A dispute was begun between GA and AL over
the first bridge to cross the Chattahoochee in Columbus. Many years later a
US Supreme Court ruling granted Georgia jurisdiction to the high-water mark
on both sides of the river. This decision had serious economic impacts for
Alabama settlements for many decades.
The
first dam to touch both banks of the Chattahoochee was the Eagle Mill Dam
just above Columbus. AL felt they should be compensated. In 1855 the Supreme
Court ruled in favor of Georgia as described above.
The
city of Columbus was established by the Georgia Legislature in 1828 as a
trading town at the head of navigable waters on the Chattahoochee just below
the fall line. In the 1850s Columbus ranked second only to Richmond,
VA as an
industrial center in the south. Saw, grain and textile mills had learned how
to harness the power of the river for energy.
Frederick Law Olmstead, famed designer of the Central Park, on a tour of the
South for the New York Times in 1854 declared Columbus “the largest
manufacturing town, south of Richmond.”
Columbus, which had already established itself as a center of the cotton
trade in the early 19th century, quickly became a center of
industrial trade with the establishment of many mills providing energy for
textile plants.
Eufala was originally named Irwinton until 1843 for the famous and wealthy
planter General William Irwin. He is reputed to have owned 50,000 acres of
land between Shorterville and Eufaula. But in 1856 the general was returning
to Eufala on the steamer HS Smith when it caught fire. Irwin jumped
overboard just before a plank was run ashore, and he drowned.
It was said that had it not been for the $60,000 in gold in
his money belt he would not have lost his life. Of course this amount of
gold would have weighed over two hundred pounds, and it is unlikely he was
carrying such a heavy fortune.
(Willoughby)
One of the largest concentrations of Antebellum homes stands
in old Eufala. Both
Eufala and Columbia began as cotton shipping towns.
200 riverboats served on the Chattahoochee.
The
Chattahoochee flowed through the richest cottonlands and depended upon the
riverboats for transport to markets.
Like
the Alabama, the mid 1850’s saw a rapid decline in steamboat cotton
transport due to the encroaching “age of the railroad.”
Horace King was a slave and master bridge builder whose owner had him build
the first bridge to connect Columbus with Phenix City (which set of the
controversy between the states described above). He designed and
supervised the construction of at least six bridges across the
Chattahoochee. Kings owner set him free after he successfully completed a
bridge in a given time (his freedom being the reward of the wager). King
went on to build many more bridges with his sons and was also twice a member
of the Alabama legislature "with the good
wishes of southern whites" during the reconstruction period.
INDUSTRIAL
Steamboat Lore on the
Chattahoochee
The Chattahoochee steamboat era was never so
bustling as the decades following the Civil War. Though the war had taken
its toll on many river port cities like Appalachicola, FL, Abbeville, AL,
and Fort Gaines, GA, innovations in steamboat design turned them into the
floating palaces that many historians know and love.
A party barge excursion on the Chattahoochee River - photo
by T.W. Tillman, Columbus Museum
The
Naiad, named after the water nymphs of ancient lore, who lived and gave life
to bodies of water, was the best known steamer to ever ply the river.Dinners
were so well prepared that one traveler said a meal aboard the Naiad “was
one of the rare moments of life when trouble and worry did not dare
intrude.”
Other
steamboat luxuries included playing cards, shooting alligators from the
guardrail, black american jazz bands, and in later years some steamboats
tugged dancefloors behind the boat. Steamboats became both a form of travel
and a form of entertainment. Some began going on day long picnics to scenic
islands in the main channel.
By
1871 and 72 the Chattahoochee was in sore need of improvement due to heavy
sedimentation from half a century of intensive cotton production and
deforestation. Navigation was becoming more and more difficult if not
impossible in some areas.
The
army Corps of Engineers set to work widening the channel in some areas and
building wing dams (with the hopes of scouring deeper channels) in others.
By 1881 the steamboat lines had had enough. The Corps improvements had
actually made conditions worse. Despite their protests, the Corps projects
continued. “By 1891, silting in the channel was occurring faster than
progress was being made.”
Slowly government dollars dwindled and in 1895, steamboat companies bore the
entire expense of keeping the river open. At this point the Chattahoochee
was the south’s longest and most important river east of the Mississippi.
But the country was in the midst of a depression.
After
the 1900s steamers began to change. Many of the old companies closed their
doors. After the civil war many boats stopped at more than 260 landings
between Columbus and Appalachicola. Now they only stopped at 28 major
communities. 16 years later the stops would number only 5.
“The
river’s natural character of drying up to a rivulet in the region north of
Eufaula during periods of low rainfall was exacerbated by settlement of the
lands along its banks. As farmers and developers loosened the red clay by
forest clearing and plowing, wind and rain swept the dirt into the river
bed.
Expanding rail lines and after WWI the birth of the mass produced
automobile, both contributed to the slow death of river commerce.
The
last steam line sold their final boat in 1921.
Industrial Growth in
the Basin
In 1873, Columbus’s Eagle and Phenix (renamed
after its rapid rise from the ashes of Wilsons Raiders at the close of the
Civil War) Mill became the South’s largest textile plant and the city’s
primary employer. Housing for the workers was built on the AL side of the
river and later named Phenix City.
All
electric power interests in Columbus merged around 1906 and after 1930
became a part of the Georgia Power Company. The company held a monopoly on
power generation and owned riparian rights to 44% of the succession of
waterfalls between
West Point
and Columbus. This 15 mile stretch was incredibly valuable for power
production as it dropped almost 300 feet. In contrast, between Eufaula and
Columbus the river only drops a foot per mile.
Throughout the early 20th century West Point had a bad tendency
to flood. 1901, 1912, 1915, 1916, and 1918. Then in 1919 the worst of all
hit, ten and a half feet above flood stage.
The
poet, F.W. Nash hinted that the years of land clearing practices were
responsible in his poem entitled “The Rivers Vindication” which ended:
“So I’ve gone on the war
path;
I’ve harried your lands with glee.
Restore with care my woodlands fair
And I’ll peacefully flow to the sea.”
Shortly after WWII James Woodruff headed to Washington campaigning for the
most ambitious changes the Chattahoochee would experience. The River and
Harbors Act of 1946 would affect the entire ACF basin.
Starting at Chattahoochee, Florida where the Chattahoochee and Flint
converge was built the Jim Woodruf Dam, to include hydropower and a lock for
river transport. Its reservoir became known as Lake
Seminole.
Fifty miles north at Columbus the George W. Andrews Lock and Dam deepened
the river more than widened it, improving navigation depth for 26 miles
upstream. The Walter F. George was placed near
Fort
Gaines
and Eufaula. It has become the largest producer of energy on the river and a
mecca for fisherman.
Buford dam/Lake Lanier was named for Sidney Lanier who wrote “The Song of
the Chattahoochee”
When
the Woodruff dam opened, Bainbridge, GA on the
Flint River
became Georgia’s first inland port.
The Chattahoochee’s Legacy of Pollution
Atlanta, West Point, Columbus, Phenix City,
Eufaula, Fort
Gaines,
Dothan, and
Columbia all ran their sewage directly into the river until the 1960s.
Columbus began treating its waste in 1964 but only by holding waste in a
pond letting solids fall out released their chemical wastes
untreated into the river.
“The
Chattahoochee’s pollution problem was distinct from most other American
river, for rarely were cities the size of Atlanta placed near the head of a
river system. The
Chattahoochee had to swallow the filth of Atlanta and carry it inside its
belly for hundreds of miles to the ocean.” (Willoughby)
The
first Riverkeeper was started on the Chattahoochee in 1992 (Karen Plant).
West
Point Lake, the main source of drinking water for LaGrange found dangerous
levels of mercury as well as chlordane and PCBs.
The
river’s source is a mountain spring in the
Chattahoochee
National Forest. From there it flows 540 miles to the Florida panhandle and
Apalachicola Bay.
Measuring 436 miles, the Chattahoochee is Georgia’s longest river. Below the
Chattahoochee / Flint juncture it also becomes Florida’s largest river, from
thence on called the Appalachicola
River.
The
entire river basin covers 19,600 square miles, pumps an average of 16
billion gallons of freshwater a day into Appalachicola Bay and ranks as the
eleventh largest river in the United States. 15
dams impede its flow.
The
nearly three million people within the tristate watershed struggle over this
finite resource. “No
other major metropolitan area in the country depends on a smaller drainage
basin.” -Joe Cook
