Bywater

This guide to Bywater in New Orleans tracks the Industrial Canal dig that began in June 1918, engineered by Panama Canal veteran George Washington Goethals to cut a shortcut between the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain. It follows what his crews found seventy feet down: a cypress forest the delta had swallowed whole, and a second one buried deeper still, laced with poison gas pockets and quicksand. You'll hear how the finished canal split this waterfront neighborhood in two, separating Bywater from Holy Cross, and what happened to the families who had farmed and fished this ground for generations. Listen for the old lock nearby that once raised and lowered ships across the divide.