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When the French settled Louisiana in the 1700s, rivers and bayous were their highways. Red River was one major avenue of transportation but a stretch of white water rapids at modern-day Alexandria hampered travel.
When explorers Thomas Freeman and Peter Custis reached the rapids in 1805, Freeman noted there were two separate stretches of white water where the river flowed over strata of clay. The two rapids were about three-quarters of a mile apart, with the upper one being near the modern-day U.S. Highway 167 bridge.
Freeman reported the lower rapids were very swift and that the water dropped about ten feet over a distance of fifty yards. In his report, Custis claimed there also was a four-foot waterfall that had to be portaged around.
The upper rapids had about the same rate of drop, but Freeman noted the water was also quite swift for approximately 550 yards above the rapids. In later years, these rapids prevented steamboats from passing beyond Alexandria except during times of high water.
Admiral David Porter discovered this during the Civil War’s 1864 Red River Campaign when a large Yankee army under Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks and dozens of navy vessels under Porter moved up the Red River to capture Shreveport.
When the Confederates defeated Banks at the Battle of Mansfield, the Union forces retreated to Alexandria. Upon arrival, Porter was horrified to find that the river had fallen so low that he could not get his vessels over the rapids.
[Read this: For most of its history, the Red River has posed a problem for Louisiana.]
Porter's largest ironclads drew seven feet of water, but the river at the rapids had fallen to three and a half feet. With the Rebels closing in behind him, Porter was trapped and made plans to destroy his ships to keep them out of enemy hands.
Fortunately for the Union, Lt. Col. Joseph Bailey, an engineer with logging experience, came up with a plan to dam the river and raise the water level at the rapids. Porter was not impressed with the idea. Having struggled against the river’s low water for weeks, he reportedly declared, "[I]f damning would get the fleet off, he would have been afloat long before."
With the Rebels closing in behind him, Porter was trapped and made plans to destroy his ships to keep them out of enemy hands.
Porter had few options, however, and he and Banks agreed to give Bailey a chance. Soon, thousands of Union soldiers were working furiously on the project. On the Pineville side of the river, the dam was constructed from felled trees, while on the Alexandria side, cribs filled with rock and material taken from torn-down buildings were sunk in the river.
When these two wing dams narrowed the river, barges were loaded with rocks and sunk in the remaining gap. Even stones from Pineville's Louisiana Seminary of Learning (the forerunner of LSU) were used. The plan was to break the dam when the river had been raised sufficiently and let the ships ride the rushing water over the rapids.
The plan was to break the dam when the river had been raised sufficiently and let the ships ride the rushing water over the rapids.
Bailey's Dam proved a success, and the U.S. Navy escaped. Despite his initial resistance, Porter afterward proclaimed it was "the greatest engineering feat ever performed." In recognition of his service, Bailey was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Today, remnants of Bailey's Dam are still at Alexandria. Before the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway was completed, the old dams could be seen jutting out from the bank just below the U.S. Highway 167 bridge.
After the Civil War, officials finally turned their attention to clearing a channel through both of the rapids at Alexandria. A narrow channel had previously been cut through the lower rapids in 1854. A short article in the New York Times on Feb. 21 declared, "[W]e learn that the submarine operators, Messrs. Maillefert and Raasloff, have made great progress of late in widening and deepening the channel of the Red River, through the Lower Rapids at Alexandria. They have now a channel through the whole ledge forming the lower falls, over 350 feet in length, 40 feet in width, and of an average depth of four feet."
The Corps of Engineers eventually took over the project, but it discovered a layer of rock underneath the clay shelf. This greatly slowed the work, and the Corps did not complete the channel until 1897—fourteen years after it began.
Dr. Terry L. Jones is professor emeritus of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe who has received numerous awards for his books and outdoor articles.
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