Dr. Patricia Bixel

So the way it would work is the dredge would go out into the Gulf of Mexico and it would pick up a dredge load of mud.

And it would go into this canal and then it would take the mud and it would pump it

underneath houses.

The city took responsibility for raising the roads and the gas lines and the power lines, the sewers, any kind of city service that was underground the city committed to raise.

People had to raise their own houses.

If they were already on stilts, depending on the height of the stilt, you might get away with it.

You might not have to do anything to your house.

Some people who had brick houses who had pretty extensive properties filled in the first floor or filled in the basements and then built a third or fourth story on top.

You had to raise your chicken house.

If you had a garage or any stable or any outbuildings, you had to raise those.

But by and large, people went along with it.

Some of the most impressive cases of the grade-raising involved St.

Patrick's Catholic Church and the Letitia Rosenberg Women's Home.

And the way that would work is that you dug down under the building and you put in these joists with jacks.

And we're talking with these two particular buildings, probably 50 to 100 joists and then well over 100 to 200 jacks.

And then you very, very, very carefully raise the jacks, which raise the joists, which raise the building, and then you could pump in under it this new foundation.

It was truly impressive.

It takes them until 1911 to finish this.

And I believe that the parts that were raised were raised anywhere from two to nine feet.

Well, yes.