Industry
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Chartered in 1841, the Brazos Canal Company grew from local landowners' efforts to build canals connecting inland plantations to Gulf shipping ports. Construction began in 1847 on a canal locally called the "slave ditch" because it was dug by the slaves of company owners. A one-mile section, twenty-four feet wide and three feet deep, took two years to complete, and the project was soon abandoned. A rival company, the Galveston and Brazos Navigation Company, completed a canal between the Brazos River and Galveston Bay in 1856.
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Lake Jackson, Texas · United States
