cart when they "took a-hold"; the
smack of pile drivers, the thump of dynamite, and the whistle of
dredges filled the air. Buildings sprouted like mushrooms; in the
meadow, half a mile from the nearest water, the shipyard of the
Foundation Company began to take form. It was the plan to finish the
Canal by January, 1920.

CANAL PLANS EXPANDED.

Work in the meantime had begun on the commodity warehouse and wharf,
another facility planned by the Dock Board to relieve the growing
pains. Built on the Canal, but opening on the river, it was to perform
the same service for general commodities as the Public Cotton Warehouse
and the Public Grain Elevator did for those products. Though not a part
of the canal plan, the construction of the warehouse at this point was
part of the general scheme to concentrate industrial development on
that waterway.

Later, the Federal Government took over this work and gave New Orleans
a $13,000,000 terminal, through which it handled army supplies. It is
still using the three warehouses for storage purposes, but has leased
the half-mile double-deck wharf to the Dock Board, which is devoting it
to the general commerce of the port. In time, the Dock Board hopes to
get at least one of the buildings.

There can be no doubt but that the enterprise of New Orleans in
building the Industrial Canal had a great deal to do with the
government's determination to establish a depot at New Orleans.

On May 30, the news came out of Washington that the Doullut & Williams
Shipbuilding Company had been awarded a $15,000,000 contract by the
Emergency Fleet Corporation to build eight ships of 9,600 tons each.
This was the largest shipbuilding contract that had been given the
South. The Industrial Canal rendered it possible.

The firm of Doullut & Williams had been engaged for fifteen years or so
in the civil engineering and contracting business in New Orleans.
Captain M. P. Doullut had built launches with his own hands when a
young man, and dreamed of the time when he would have a yard capable of
turning out ocean-going vessels. The Doullut & Williams Shipbuilding
Company was organized April 25, 1918, with the following officers: M.
P. Doullut, president; Paul Doullut, vice-president; W. Horace
Williams, secretary-treasurer and general manager; L. H. Guerin, chief
engineer; and James P. Ewin, assistant chief engineer.

"I feel that New Orleans is on the eve of a very remarkable
development" said Senat