Context and Early History
The shipping hazards and safe havens of the Atlantic coast were well known and appreciated since colonial times, and considered of great communication, commercial and military importance to both the colonial power and the newly established, independent United States. The physical features of the eastern coast were advantageous for intracoastal development, resulting from erosion and deposition of sediment over its geologic history, but also enhanced and redistributed by the action of the Atlantic ocean currents along it. Since the coastline represented its national border and commerce of the time was chiefly by water, the fledgling government established a degree of national control over it. Inland transportation to supply the coasting trade at the time however, was less known and virtually undeveloped, but when new lands and their favorable river systems were added in 1787, a radically new and free national policy was established for their development and transportation use. Over time, internal improvements of natural coastal and inland waterways would develop into the Great Loop, which provides water-borne traffic circumnavigation of the eastern continental United States, using minimal ocean travel, with the Intracoastal Waterway providing its eastern and southern route.
Read more about this topic: Intracoastal Waterway
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