The waterway's proper name, as used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and on NOAA nautical charts, is Inner Harbor Navigation Canal (IHNC).

The dream of a shipping canal connecting the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain goes back to Spanish colonial times (1763–1803).

In July 1914 the Louisiana State Government authorized the Port of New Orleans to build a deep-water shipping canal between the river and lake.

Thereafter, a study was undertaken for the Port by Ford, Bacon and Davis Engineers, and the results were presented in its report of June 30, 1915.

[2] Each of the options was originally explored for barge traffic and based on the construction of locks at the Mississippi River that would provide 10 feet of draft over the sill.

However, the report noted that the Press Street and Jackson Barracks options could be increased to accommodate ship drafts.

Along the riverfront, though, buildings demolished to make room for the canal included homes and the Ursuline Convent, whose Dauphine Street facility was nearly a century old at that time.

During World War II the Intracoastal Waterway was rerouted, and a newly excavated segment extending through the swamp west from the Rigolets joined the Industrial Canal at its approximate midway point between the river and the lake.

[5] In the 1960s the Industrial Canal/Intracoastal Waterway junction was enlarged, in expectation of the anticipated surge in traffic resulting from the completion (1965) of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet.

In 2005, with the approach of Hurricane Katrina, storm surge funneled by the confluence of the GIWW's and MRGO's levees created multiple breaches in the canal's concrete floodwalls, including the spectacular failure of a quarter-mile length on the Lower 9th Ward side, resulting in catastrophic flooding.

A month later Hurricane Rita reflooded recently drained areas along the canal by topping emergency fill at the breach sites.

Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, proposals have been made to close the northern end of the canal by building a dam at the entrance to Lake Pontchartrain, as part of an effort to block storm surge.

[7] Since a dam would prohibit shipping between the lake and the canal, the US Army Corps of Engineers has designed a surge barrier, the IHNC Seabrook Floodgate Structure.