Jim Bradshaw: Big vision required big money

In the late 1800s newcomers from the American Midwest and Germans settling around Roberts Cove discovered that the South Louisiana prairies were ideal for growing rice — if they could get enough water for their crops.
They soon discovered that even Louisiana’s plentiful rainfall couldn’t be relied on. It fell when it wanted to, not when it was needed, and not always where it was needed.
They turned to irrigation canals and to deep wells, which were more reliable, but still were not perfect. Salt water sometimes intruded into the streams that fed the canals, making the water unusable tor irrigation. Wells needed to be dug and required pumps, both expensive.
That’s why two grand schemers came up with plans for huge irrigation systems that would draw water from the salt-free Mississippi and spread it over thousands of acres of rice land. Both of their plans involved pumping water from Bayou Courtableau in St. Landry Parish. It connected to the Mississippi via the Red and Atchafalaya rivers, was close to the land that needed to be irrigated, and was just high enough in elevation that gravity would send the water into rice fields with just a little boost from the pumps that pulled it from the bayou.
Remnants of J. Franklin Schell’s ”great irrigating canal” can still be seen near Washington. He formed a company in 1906 to undertake what was called the largest engineering scheme ever in Louisiana. But he was not the only one to dream such large — and unrealized — dreams.
Welman Bradford, a civil engineer from Crowley, and state legislator Jonas W. Bailey Jr. may have been the first to give serious thought to building a mammoth irrigation canal.
The St. Landry Clarion reported in the spring of 1899 that Bradford and Bailey had raised enough money to begin work on “a huge canal, the head of which will be on bayou Courtableau … commencing one and a half miles north of Washington on the Wartelle plantation.”
Bradford, the newspaper said, was “an authority on the irrigation of rice fields,” who “for years … has been … figuring out excavation work, pumpage, etc.,” to map out “the most ambitious irrigating plan ever contemplated in Louisiana.”
The canal would be 250 feet wide and more than 50 miles long, and would be filled by four pumps pulling 33,500 gallons of water per minute from the bayou. That would be enough to irrigate more than 100,000 acres. Boats on “the immense ditch,” would serve a rice mill and warehouses built six or eight miles apart. The warehouses would be needed; the mill would handle 3,000 sacks of rice a day and employ 300 people.
“The plan is a comprehensive one and has been thoroughly thought out and planned,” the newspaper reported. “It is estimated that the work will cost thirteen million dollars but, according to Mr. Bradford and others competent to judge, the expense will be slight compared with the perpetual benefits to be derived therefrom.”
Still, that was a lot of money; $13 million then would be about $415 million today.
Schell’s grand scheme cost about the same and he and Bradford were trying to find investors at the same time. Bradford was a better engineer; Schell was a better fundraiser.
Bradford’s St. Landry Irrigation and Development Company broke ground first, but Schell was not far behind. The Clarion exulted in April 1903 that “the prospects of two mammoth canals through St. Landry Parish are glorious. … A few weeks ago, actual work was begun on … the Bradford Canal and now comes the cheering news that the one proposed by the Union Rice and Irrigation Company (or Schell) will be begun in the next ninety days.”
Bradford ran out of money quickly and had to abandon his scheme. Schell managed to build several miles of canal. In April 1911 his young daughter pushed a button and “powerful [pumps] jumped into action.”
But those pumps ran only a few years. Water flowed, but money didn’t. Schell reorganized his company and revised his plans, but in 1915 his “largest engineering scheme ever” turned into what may still be the biggest bankruptcy in south Louisiana history.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.