| HERBERT JACKSON DRANE PAPERS (RG326), 1874-1959 |
SERIES IV: LAKELAND-GULF CANAL, 1933-1959 |
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Biographical Sketch |
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Scope and Content Note |
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Personal Papers |
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Estate Files |
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Lakeland Building and Investment Company |
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In 1933, a group of Lakeland and Polk Country businessmen interested in the construction of a canal from Lakeland to Tampa Bay organized the Lakeland-Gulf Canal Company. The company employed engineering consultants to do a preliminary feasibility study and applied for a loan from the Public Works Administration, but accomplished little else in the next four years.
The company hired an executive director, L. E. Detweiler, in early 1937 and directed him to raise funds for the construction of the proposed canal. In this, he failed miserably. Detweiler's only contribution was his suggestion that the name of the company be changed to the Lakeland-Tampa Industrial Canal. The name change became effective in late 1937 and a new slate of officers was chosen, including Herbert Drane as president of the corporation.
The newly reorganized company continued to promote the construction of a Lakeland to Tampa canal through the end of the decade of the thirties. The company hired an engineering firm, which even developed plans and blueprints. By 1940, however, the nation's and the state's interest was turning toward the war in Europe and interest in the development of a Lakeland to the Gulf canal declined. Several attempts were made in the years immediately following World War II to revive interest in the canal project, but to no avail. The project remained the unfulfilled dream of Lakeland's pre-war entrepreneurs.
Included are an application for construction funding to the Public Works Administration, company by-laws, legal briefs, minutes of meetings, blueprints correspondence, reports, surveys, a company prospectus, lists of staff and stockholders, stock certificates,(pictured above) summaries of facts and statistics, and newspaper clippings.
The records in this series are arranged alphabetically by name, subject, or type of record and chronologically within folders.
The complete folder title list is available is Special Collections.
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