Mile 98.2 - RBD Harvey Lock - Entrance to the Harvey Canal

98.2 RBD Harvey Lock - Entrance to the Harvey Canal

Lock through here to gain entrance to the Harvey Canal, which in turn will bring you to the Intracoastal Waterway West -- running towards towards Morgan City, and eventually into Texas.

The Harvey Canal, located on the west bank of the Mississippi opposite New Orleans, connects the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway with the Mississippi at New Orleans by way of a 6.5-mile canal that was built by the Army Corps of Engineers. The Harvey Canal had its origin in a private canal that was in use long before the Corps facility was built. The canal had been opened up by a sugar planter in the area for drainage purposes. Some accounts say that Noel d'Estrehan had his slaves dig the canal, and other say that it was dug by German immigrants who were paid in land. In any case, the canal proved useful for many purposes, and atone time boats that wanted to use it were hauled over the levee on a contraption that the boatmen called "the Submarine Railroad." In 1845 Joseph Hale Harvey of Virginia married one of d'Estrehan's daughters, and built an elaborate home near the canal. He widened and deepened the waterway, and the river pilots called his ornate, turreted house "Harvey's Castle" and his canal "Harvey Canal." In 1942 the Harvey family sold the canal and its appurtenances to the United States Government. The house was demolished, and a new lock gate replaced the crude one that had been in use for many years. The new lock was opened for navigation in 1934. The Harvey Lock is open to all water traffic, free of charge. It is in operation day and night, every day in the year. In 1974, 6 million tons of cargo passed through the lock. Pleasure boats as well as commercial vessels use it as a route to the GIWW west to Brownsville, Texas. (Braggs)