The Cross Florida Barge Canal was the dream of generations—a shipping canal across Florida, connecting the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.
In the 1960s, President Kennedy revived the project. Contractors created dirt pile hills and backhoe bucket valleys. A machine called a crusher-crawler (pictured below, left) flattened thousands of cypress trees along the Ocklawaha River. A dam was built creating a lake, now known as Rodman Reservoir, which flooded more than 1,000 acres of hardwood trees. A completed canal project ultimately would impact the ecology of a 40-mile stretch on the 70-mile Ocklawaha River.
Crusher-crawlers like this one razed acres of trees along the Ocklawaha River in the 1960s (left). A small boat cruises along the Cross Florida Barge Canal (right).