The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America

How, you ask, did the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 change America?

The Corps of Engineers.

The Great Migration.

The land along the Mississippi was some of the most fertile farmland that the colonists found. Originally home to a variety of Indigenous American communities, many of which were agriculturally-based, these lands eventually became home, first to farmers, and then to the people involved in the shipping along the river, carrying the crops to New Orleans and thence by sea to other places. Even a town like Memphis, TN was on track to become on of the United States most cosmopolitan cities, barely damaged in the civil war, but succumbing to wave after wave of Yellow Fever in the late 1800s that drove most of the people who could afford to leave to flee.

But one of the risks of living and growing crops along the Mississippi was and still is, the spring floods. The floods are the reason that the land is so productive, because each flood deposits rich mud from the Mississippi. All those places where people are planting and living and building cities are on a flood plain.

And then people became distressed when the river did what rivers do: flood the flood plain.

The great flood of 1927 was a pretty big flood. While “only” 500 people died, the flood covered 27,000 square miles up to 30′ deep, and displaced more than 600,000 people. Many of the displaced people were African Americans who had been trapped in low-wage jobs in the Mississippi delta, where the white land-owners were attempting to maintain their pre-war agricultural economy through Jim Crow laws. So, when the African Americans in the delta were displaced by the flood, many of them became part of The Great Migration to the North, never to return. I wouldn’t have stayed, either: the local authorities made it pretty clear to them how little they mattered as human beings. Well, these human beings formed 95% of the agricultural labor in the area and, when they left, I’m guessing they were missed.

The flood caused a lot of other damage from Missouri to New Orleans, and the Federal Government got involved. This book tells the stories of two men who had contrasting approaches to “taming” the river.

One, James Eads – a relative of President Buchanan’s – had grown up along the Mississippi, taught himself how to become an engineer and built a thriving underwater salvage business, designing several boats that revolutionized the approach. Then, after seeking and failing a government contract to remove snags in the Mississippi because of his lack of formal education, “he formed a syndicate of fifty insurance companies to finance the operation privately.” Wealthy, tough, and unyielding – “even when playing chess with his grandson” – he went on to build ironclads for the Navy (although he had never done that before, but then, who had?), and became even richer and more powerful.

In the other corner, Andrew Atkinson Humphreys. Growing up in Philadelphia, to money, he graduated from West Point, which was run by the Army Corps of Engineers. After a short term serving in the Army in Florida, he was forced out of the Army by illness (Florida in 1836 was a hotbed of mosquitos, heat, bad water, humidity, and – remember – no refrigeration or antibiotics; it’s a wonder everyone wasn’t too sick to fight). Then he held a series of appointments in various engineering endeavors: the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers; U.S. Coastal Survey – and finally, surveying the lower Mississippi.

This story tells of the competition between these two men and what they represented: civilian vs the Corp of Engineers.

The Corps of Engineers won.

The Army Corps of Engineers has done a lot of good for the U.S.

And has also caused a whole host of new problems.

“Taming” the Mississippi has caused the water to move much faster and with more force, causing coastal erosion and imperiling New Orleans and the Louisiana coast.

And the Mississippi still floods.