Charles W. Hay was a prominent businessman and merchant for decades in Marion. He was an active member of the Marion Retail Merchants, the Marion Chamber of Commerce and numerous other civic organizations promoting the business atmosphere of Marion and “Little Egypt”.
He was prolific in his attempts to promote the area and wrote hundreds of letters to state and federal government agencies and officials, manufacturers and trade organizations. Though he was active from the early 1900’s to his death in 1967, his realm of influence was most significant in the 1930’s and 1940’s when he was on friendly terms with numerous congressional figures such as Congressmen Kent Keller, Runt Bishop, and others.
The Southern Illinois Canal was his “brainchild” that he appears to have devised over time. He created the attached map around 1938 or 1939 using a 1937 State Highway map. When the original proposal was linked to other proposed government projects in the pre WWII times, it didn’t get off the ground, likely because of the timing of WWII. The proposal was again outlined in local papers in 1961 toward the end of his life, not bad for an 88 year old man. The project, of course, never got off the ground but illustrates the scale that Hay was notorious for thinking at. Keep in mind that, in his time, the area’s economy was based heavily on mining and agriculture and devastating floods on the Ohio and Mississippi occurred on a far too often basis causing massive loss of lives and property.
The following is an extract from an unknown local newspaper believed to have been in 1961.
“The early solution of the major economic problems of Southern Illinois centers in the building of the proposed river to river, harbor canal, extending from Shawneetown on the Ohio River to Grand Tower on the Mississippi River.
This proposed canal is planned to follow the water course of three streams, the Saline River that empties into the Ohio River near Shawneetown, the Crab Orchard stream flowing through Crab Orchard Lake into Big Muddy River that in turn empties into the Mississippi River near Grand Tower.
Five miles east of Marion, Illinois, is an Ozark range divide, on the east side of which is the Saline River and on the west side of the same is the Crab Orchard stream. A one-mile land cut would join them and the flow of water could be diverted to east or west.
The most important feature of this proposed canal is the flood control of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. When the Ohio River is in flood stage, which is in this stage six weeks earlier than that of the Mississippi River, the overflow could be turned into the canal that would empty it into the Mississippi and later when this river is in its flood stage the operation could be reversed.
This flood control feature of this proposed canal is the greatest concept since that of the Panama Canal. The saving of lives and the security of property cannot be assessed and the economic justification is beyond question.
Iron ore from the south can be barged into the Saline coal field and iron ore from the north would reach the Big Muddy Coal field. Thus heavy industrialization will follow most certainly, when this ore is brought to the source of the prime, industrial fuel of coal and oil.
This canal would be of inestimable value to the fluorspar and silica mines of this immediate region as well as economic relief to the producers and shippers of Southern Illinois vast farm and orchard products.” —–C.W. Hay
Sam’s Notes: Hay’s daughter Betty Hay McDevitt allowed me access to her father’s old papers in July of 2013 and this is one of the items that was recovered. Though the project never happened, it illustrated to me that Hay, like many of the forward thinking citizens whose “big ideas” may or may not have ever gotten off the ground, at least, kept pushing the area in a forward direction.
I found copies of two related letters which Hay had sent the proposal to. One was to State Senator Gordon E. Kerr on the Commission to Study Interstate Shipping and Sale of Agricultural Commodities dated January 30, 1961 and the second was to Congressman Paul H. Douglas from Illinois, chairman of the Joint Economic Committee for the U.S. Congress dated January 25, 1961.