"As Mobile Goes, So Goes the Corps": A Look At Change Inside A Government Agency

In 1985, Dr. D. Gregory Jeane completed his history of the Mobile District Office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from its inception in 1815 to 1985. From the first permanent assignment of an Army engineer to Mobile in 1815, to the space age in the 1980s, the narrative of the Mobile District unfolds meticulously for 170 years. In 1935, the merger of the former Mobile and Montgomery Districts formed the Mobile District. Today, the District oversees projects in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, and Central and South America. Until the last years of the nineteenth century, the Corps focused on military design projects and water transportation issues authorized by Congress. After 1888, when the civil works boundaries were established, the District focused on navigational improvements and obstruction removal from rivers and harbors. In 1899, Congress passed sweeping legislation, making the Chief of Engineers Office responsible for regulating pollution and obstructions in the nations navigable waterways, including the construction of wharfs, piers, bridges and any other hazards to navigation. The law initiated a series of surveys of smaller streams and river basins to improve slack water navigation through the use of locks and dams. During the early period of the modem era 1912-1985, the Corps directed primary attention and effort to flood control. Controlling the nations waters emerged as a national issue with the 1927 Mississippi River floods. Until World War II, the Corps did not oversee military construction. Corps efforts were limited to military design. However, after the war, the Corps, not desiring to lose the military construction expertise it had gained during the conflict, continued to administer military construction projects. In the years after 1985 the District developed sizeable projects at Redstone Arsenal, Anniston Army Depot, Eglin AFB, Maxwell Tullahoma, Tennessee.