Mobile Canal if no Louisiana Purchase

[Jackson Lennock]

Let's say there is no Louisiana Purchase, and only a "Missouri Purchase" - i.e., France only sells the lands north of the Red River or Arkansas River, plus a right of access to the Port of New Orleans. Could the US have built a canal, Erie-Style, along the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway to substitute for the mighty Mississippi as an all-American access route to the Gulf of Mexico?

Alternatively, there's a route along the Yazoo and Pearl Rivers, but that leaves the mouth of the new route too close to French Louisiana for comfort, and Mobile is just a better port. There are also some uplands between the Yazoo and Pearl in a way that isn't there for the alternative route, which goes entirely through lowlands.

 

[Jackson Lennock]

So here's a modified version of the above. I put the border on the Red River, but Louisiana gets a border along the 32nd parallel from the Pearl River to the Red River. Now the chokehold around the point where the red river meets the Mississippi isn't right on the border.




Mobile probably ends up a city with a Metropolitan Area the size of New Orleans at least (1.2 million, instead of around 430,000 today). But Mobile could easily be bigger, since the geography is better. New Orleans is sitting on a bed of silt and sinking all the time after all, whereas Mobile is on firmer terrain.

Birmingham, Alabama might attract some industrial development too. Louisiana OTL had some light industry (port and shipping and whatnot), and here that could pop up in Mobile. Birmingham's geography is such that if not for political factors historically it could have been a second Pittsburgh.

 

[Charles EP M.]

I don't know how easy it would've been but a key transport link going through Alabama and Alabama being that place of important ports, industry, historical gambling boats like the Mississippi stereotype etc would be a very fun AH

 

[Jackson Lennock]

I don't know how easy it would've been but a key transport link going through Alabama and Alabama being that place of important ports, industry, historical gambling boats like the Mississippi stereotype etc would be a very fun AH

I suspect it would have required significant national investment.

Also, a possible map of "Louisiana."

 

[JesterBL]

One big thing is that the Florida Parishes were not acquired as part of the Louisiana Purchase.

I'm personally of the opinion that if you get a successful US, it is probably eventually going to take New Orleans, by force, if necessary. There probably aren't many scenarios where France will maintain Louisiana. A war with them is probably cheaper than the proposed Tombigbee Canal here (which is by a rough estimate going to be longer than the Erie Canal, in a region with a climate and local economy which is way less conducive to this kind of massive project).

 

[raharris1973]

Given France being at war with Britain so likely, isn't a Spanish Louisiana or Spanish successor state Louisiana a hella lot more likely than any French Lousiana with any PoD after 1759, despite how often people equate no Louisiana Purchase with French Louisiana. I mean France was barely there in 1803 even though they claimed it.

 

[Indicus]

There was talk of a canal between the Ocoee and Conasauga rivers in the early nineteenth century, to the extent the Tennessee General Assembly granted a charter to a company for that purpose in 1826. Which would have served much the same purpose (linking Mobile to the Mississippi watershed) while being considerably smaller and more viable for this timeframe. However, for good reasons, the Cherokee refused to allow this to get built, and by the time they got cleansed, it was the age of the railroad.

I do agree the US would come knocking on New Orleans sooner or later. Which doesn’t make such a canal impossible, but it does inhibit its importance.

 

[frustrated progressive]

TBH I think the most important effect of a push for the canal-even if it never got built or never recovered its costs-might be that the South now has a reason to support a huge push for internal improvements, just as the North does. That could upend antebellum politics mightily.

 

[raharris1973]

TBH I think the most important effect of a push for the canal-even if it never got built or never recovered its costs-might be that the South now has a reason to support a huge push for internal improvements, just as the North does . That could upend antebellum politics mightily.

Indeed, boost to southern Whiggery, or gives internal improvements bipartisan support.

 

[raharris1973]

There was talk of a canal between the Ocoee and Conasauga rivers in the early nineteenth century, to the extent the Tennessee General Assembly granted a charter to a company for that purpose in 1826. Which would have served much the same purpose (linking Mobile to the Mississippi watershed) while being considerably smaller and more viable for this timeframe. However, for good reasons, the Cherokee refused to allow this to get built, and by the time they got cleansed, it was the age of the railroad.

I do agree the US would come knocking on New Orleans sooner or later. Which doesn’t make such a canal impossible, but it does inhibit its importance.

Curious to see a map of this proposal.

 

[Indicus]

Curious to see a map of this proposal.

I circled the relevant stuff in red. Map is really zoomed in, I know - but this is what I found.

 

[Jackson Lennock]

Curious to see a map of this proposal.

A downside is that you need locks and damns to make the Tennessee River navigable that far upstream if you're a midwestern farmer seeking a relatively cheap way to get your goods to market out east or further abroad.

Meanwhile the Mobile Canal proposal is already sort of a thing OTL. The "Great Loop(s)" - all-waterway routes to travel around eastern north america - include the Mobile Canal option.