Precursors
Engineer and canal advocate Christopher Colles petitioned the Congress of the Confederation in 1783 for a land grant at the falls, with a promise to start a canal company. They declined. As early as 1805 there were serious plans for a canal to bypass the falls, with rival sides supporting a canal either on the Kentucky (south) or Indiana (north) side of the river. Proponents of an Indiana-side canal included Cincinnati businessmen, who feared economic competition from Louisville. Both Kentucky and Indiana chartered canal companies in 1805, although nothing came of either effort. Indiana chartered a second company in 1818, which made preliminary excavations, work was halted after the possible sabotage of a dam, and all efforts were halted by the Panic of 1819.
In 1808 Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin suggested federal backing of a Kentucky-side canal. The United States Senate passed bills to this effect in 1810 and 1811, but both died in the House. Although little materialized politically, the subject of the canal and federal funding for it was widely debated in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, and Washington, D.C. in the 1820s.
Read more about this topic: Louisville And Portland Canal