Sketch of the Leland Neck cutoff

Fig 82 2 Sketch of the Leland Neck cutoff. (Adapted from Schweizer, 1933) 

Stretch where there was chronic bank caving was Paw Paw Bend near Marshall Point which in 1932 threatened to cause a junction with an abandoned channel of the Yazoo River that would have required 3 mi of revetment. Instead the MRC began work on a cutoff on October 19, 1933, completing it on March 12, 1934. A similar situation occurred when the Corps went forward with a cutoff at Worthington Point ahead of schedule to alleviate rapid bank caving in Kentucky Bend (Matthes, 1948). 

By the end of 1935 nine cutoffs were in operation at Yucatan, Diamond Point, Glasscock, Giles, Leland, Worthington, Willow Point, Marshall Point, and Ashbrook, with two more under construction. In a report to the Chief of Engineers that year, Ferguson was able to state. 

The Commission concludes that no material adverse effect on through navigation has occurred or is to be anticipated due to these cut-offs. It considers that the Department is committed to the completion of the cut-offs that have been authorized and that they should be completed. 

1932 (MRC, 1939). At the same time, there was a significant improvement in navigation measured in travel times. By 1938 the trip downriver from Helena, Arkansas, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, took nearly 11 hours less than in 1931 the trip upriver took more than 20 hours less than in 1931 (Camillo Pearcy, 2006). 

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