Ruins of a Forgotten Highway: The impacts of improvements by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the St. Croix Riverway after 100 years.

Summary

A number of organizations within the National Park Service collaborated in the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway to document the extensive United States Army Corps of Engineers "improvements" along the lower river below St. Croix Falls. From 1879 to 1900 the Corps built 3.6 miles of wing dams, closing dams, jetties, revetments, and shoreline rip-rap to regulate the river and make it a predictable commercial highway for steamboats and log drives. Through discovery and documentation of the remnants and extent of these cultural resources, this 2015 study provides an opportunity to share this story with the public and provoke visitors' appreciation of the complexity of past and present human interaction with "nature." The findings will be used in concert with historical research as the basis for a National Register nomination of the structures as a nationally significant historic district, and become integrated into the Park’s planning documentation and interpretive program.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2016   •
• Present and Future: Influences from the NPS and NHPA on Underwater Cultural Heritage

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 401