Although this difference in elevation was advantageous in terms of defense, it did not provide easy movement between the working waterfront and the city above.

[5] In 1854, stonemason Michael Cash (1833–1880), an immigrant from the Irish village of Blackwater, County Wexford, began building part of today's ballast-stone retaining wall, which runs a course of 0.75 miles (1.21 km) and averages 19 feet (5.8 m) in height.

[7] During construction of the Barnard Street wall, on August 2, 1856, 30-year-old George Rankin fell to his death, not having realized that building work had begun.

[8] In 1857, the city council contracted John Scudder, builder of many homes around Savannah, to link the Lincoln Ramp walls with those at East Broad Street.

Claghorn and Cunningham had petitioned the city council to erect a wall at the foot of the street to prevent the flow of sand down from the bluff which would impede their building plans.

In 1887, Wilcox and Gibbs Guano Company, which owned the old Commerce Row buildings to the east, received permission to tear up the stretch of Factors Walk that passed in front of their properties.