Valley Creek Canal, West Jefferson County, Alabama, reports

During the first half of the twentieth century, in an effort to circumvent the northern railroad and financial moguls holding the Birmingham (Alabama) industrial district hostage, Birmingham's leaders repeatedly attempted to get the Army Corps of Engineers and the federal government to build a canal from the Warrior River to Birmingham. Birmingport, on the Warrior River, is approximately twelve miles in a straight line from Birmingham's industrial center. The railroad line running between the two cities meanders seventy miles around the many hills separating the river from the two cities.

Birmingham leaders selected Henry L. Badham Jr., president of the Bessemer Coal, Iron, and Land Company, to testify in support of the canal before the Corps of Engineers. In a 2500-word presentation, which included supporting engineering studies, maps, and canal elevation profiles, Badham covered the benefits of the canal in regards to civilian job increases, greatly expanded manufacturing with new industries, and trade to the district, the South, and the rest of the United States. The affected land owners of the Birmingham district offered to donate the land for the canal right of ways.

The Corps of Engineers--after consultation with their political masters--decided that "the improvement would place Bessemer on a direct inland water route, but the cost would be entirely incommensurate with the anticipated benefits."

Source: Tom Badham, "The Valley Creek - Bessemer Canal, That Never Was," Jefferson County Historical Association Newsletter no. 4 (October 2013): 2, http://www.jeffcohistory.com/newsletter_Oct_13_pg2.html.