1908 - Tri-fold panorama real photograph postcard showing attendees at a Texas Waterways Convention

Corpus Christi, Texas, 1908. Unbound. Very good. This tri-fold collotype real photo postcard measures 16½" x 3½" and is captioned "Texas Waterways Convention / Corpus Christi, Texas. Nov. 18-19, 1908. It is franked with a 1-cent green Franklin stamp and canceled with an indistinct Corpus Christi flag postmark. . The public was long dissatisfied with railroads' pricing practices. As a result, interest began to refocus on the use of rivers and canals to move materials. Theodore Roosevelt became the movement's leading crusader, and Congress began debating a system of connected intracoastal waterways that would stretch from Boston, Massachusetts to Brownsville, (truncated) Texas. This postcard documents a major Texas convention held in support of that effort. The Texas clamor was soon picked up in other states, for an improved waterway integrating the 18,000 miles of rivers and lakes primarily as a method to transport northern coal to the Mississippi Valley and the Gulf Coast. Both efforts eventually met with success.

(For more information, see Steelhammer's History of the Gulf Intra Coastal Waterway, available online.)

A scarce visual record of the effort that helped revolutionize American transportation. . (Inventory #: 010345)