For generations, Native Americans, explorers, and settlers hauled canoes and small boats across the narrow strip of land between Mosquito Lagoon and the Indian River, giving rise to the name “haulover.” Spaniards were visiting by 1605 and slid boats over ground covered with mulberry tree bark, while early settlers later used rollers and skids to drag schooners across. Fort Ann was established nearby in 1837 during the 2nd Seminole War to protect the haulover from Indians and move military supplies from the lagoon to the river. In 1852, contractor G.E. Hawes dug the first canal with slave labor, creating a passage 3 ft. deep and 14 ft. wide that was completed in time for the 3rd Seminole War. Steamboats and cargo ships used it until the railroad arrived in 1885, and by 1887 the Florida Coast Line Canal and Transportation Co. had dug a new, deeper canal a short distance from the original. In 1927 the Intracoastal Waterway made Haulover Canal a federal project to be maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the channel was later widened and deepened, with a basin added for launching boats.