Ditch of Dreams ─ The Cross Florida Barge Canal and the Struggle for Florida's Future

Traces the long standing effort to build a canal across Florida

"Offers timeless lessons about pork-barrel politics and the power of citizen-environmentalism. Most important, it reminds us that today’s economic coup may well be tomorrow's environmental crisis."--Cynthia Barnett, author of Mirage

"Ties the exploitation of the Ocklawaha to Florida history across nearly two centuries. Moreover, they bring to life the personalities of canal supporters and detractors, including such dynamic individuals as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Claude Pepper, and Marjorie Harris Carr."--Frederick Rowe Davis, author of The Man Who Saved Sea Turtles

For centuries, men dreamed of cutting a canal across the Florida peninsula. Intended to reduce shipping times, it was championed in the early twentieth century as a way to make the mostly rural state a center of national commerce and trade.

Rejected by the Army Corps of Engineers as "not worthy," the project received continued support from Florida legislators. Federal funding was eventually allocated and work began in the 1930s, but the canal quickly became a lightning rod for controversy.

Steven Noll and David Tegeder trace the twists and turns of the project through the years, drawing on a wealth of archival and primary sources. Far from being a simplistic morality tale of good environmentalists versus evil canal developers, the story of the Cross Florida Barge Canal is a complex one of competing interests amid the changing political landscape of modern Florida.

Thanks to the unprecedented success of environmental citizen activists, construction was halted in 1971, though it took another twenty years for the project to be canceled. Though the land intended for the canal was deeded to the state and converted into the Cross Florida Greenway, certain aspects of the dispute--including the fate of Rodman Reservoir--have yet to be resolved.

Steven Noll, master lecturer in history at the University of Florida, is the author ofFeeble-Minded in Our Midst and editor of Mental Retardation in America.David Tegeder is professor of history and chairperson of the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences at Santa Fe College.