The dredging of the Potomac river in 1881...........should have made it deeper.....................



 Much of the dredged material was used to build up the existing tidal flats in the Potomac River as well as sandbars which had been created by silting around Long Bridge.^[10]Reclamation occurred in three phases: Section 1 (what is now 135-acre (550,000 m²) West Potomac Park), section 2 (what is now the 277-acre (1,120,000 m²) area around the Tidal Basin), and section 3 (what is now 327-acre (1,320,000 m²) East Potomac Park).^[11] Congress formally designated these areas "Potomac Park" on March 3, 1897.