Screwpiles: The Forgotten Lighthouses

The 1940 chart shows the addition of the Jones Neck Cutoff, saving about five miles of river travel.

The Richmond Deepwater Terminal now shows on the map.

The channel was also dredged to 25 feet deep and 300 feet wide in 1939–1940, all the way from City Point to the Deepwater Terminal.

The 2013 chart shows great contrast to the early charts. The river channel is much easier to navigate with the elimination of four major “loops” that had to be followed until the dredging of the Dutch Gap Canal, Turkey Island Cutoff, Jones Neck Cutoff, and the Aiken Swamp Cutoff. The dredging reduced the trip to Richmond by about 19 miles. The chart shows all dredged channels with controlling depths from City Point to the Deepwater Terminal in Richmond at 25 feet and a width of 300 feet. All of these efforts were made to increase the efficiency of commercial travel from Hampton Roads to Richmond. The port in Richmond is still important, with daily barge shipments of containers from Hampton Roads.

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