Note 180 — Evans’s Pedestrious Tour of Four Thousand Miles—1818 (continued 4)

The “Muscle Shoal” Rapids fall within northern Alabama. The improvement of the Tennessee at this point was long under discussion. In 1825 commissioners were appointed by the governors of Tennessee and Alabama to report thereupon; three years later a survey was made by order of the department of war, relative to removing obstructions in the channel. A canal around the rapids was begun (1829), but about that time railroads began to absorb the attention of the Southern states, and the War of Secession following, it has never been completed. The necessary improvements in the river channel have finally been made by the United States government.—Ed.