Ear on Chicago; Calumet Harbor

This is Hugh Hill speaking to you aboard the Campo Ferrell from Palermo, Italy, an ocean -going vessel which is pulled into the Great Calumet Harbor District of Chicago. And this is the story of the Calumet Harbor which is going to be one of the great things in the city of Chicago. The place which is built up over the last three and four years, to such an extent that a person who hasn't been here for a while such as myself really can't recognize it at all. It's a gigantic operation out here and we're going to tell you a little bit of how it got started and what it's doing today. I think you can hear those steve doors down there. I'm not sure that you can make out what they're saying. I better get out of the way I'm going to get hit the head with an eye beam here. As I told you, we're aboard the Campo Ferrell which is an ocean -going vessel from Italy. Its home is Palermo. Some of the cargo which is being taken off the ship is just general cargo. Some steel beams are down there in the hole. I'm looking way down in the hole now where some steve doors are working. A large crane is dipping down in and pulling up the cargo out and dumping it over here where it's then stored in the warehouse

just over here behind us. Over at the other end of the ship it's being loaded. Amazingly enough while the ship is being unloaded at the same time it's being loaded. Because at one end they're putting in sacks of meal, corn meal into the boat and I suppose go back to Italy or whatever the next stop is. Now we're going to talk on our program to James J. Piscoe, Jimmy Piscoe who is the chief engineer out here and also we're going to talk to Max Cohen who is the manager of Chicago's port district. Max what are they taking off of this boat here? They're taking off some fabricated steel and parts like that for a special electric tower that was fabricated in Italy. What are they putting on over here? They're putting some agricultural products. I think this is some corn meal and they've got some other odds and ends to go on. So you're unloading the ship at the same time you're unloading? That's right. We'll have how many ships in here today, Max? We're right two of them here today. What's the other one? The other one is the Vuxhall from Gatorburg, Sweden. How many ships do you have coming in

here nowadays? The last time I was out here you had, well at least one in a month. Well we've had better than 50 ships in here this season already here and the chances are that there'll probably be about 200 of them in there before the years out. Business is growing. Business is growing. Slow but short. Max let's get a little background in history on the County of Med Harbor before we're going any further. How did this all start? This started with an idea that's over 100 years old Jefferson Davis originated the concept of a harbor here back in the pre -civil war days. And for the last 40 or 50 years many of the pioneers in Chicago have talked about the potentialities of a harbor. Now of course with the oncoming seaway in the Cal Sag, this makes a natural connection here. It's the only place where these two waterways meet and you've seen the rail connections and other businesses that's here. So that in this harbor you've got enough room to create things without disturbing anybody. Now meeting here at the south side of Chicago, this great huge open space are the following

means of transportation, boats from the St. Lawrence Seaway coming from the Atlantic Ocean and barges going down the Calumet Sag Channel which everyone knows by now I think is being widened. Barges coming up the Calumet Sag Channel from the Mississippi River. Now Max, besides that you have rail and you also have trucks, is that right? Yes, we have probably the greatest concentration of rail facilities in the world in Chicago. And in this particular area we're particularly blessed because there are many large marshaling yards where you can hold at this tonnage and of course we expect to do a terrific truck business here. You've seen so many of them running out here today already. To give you some idea of the huge space that they have out here, I'd like to give the people who are familiar with the south side of the city of Chicago, the boundary lines for the Calumet Harbor. It's 130th street on the south, 106th street on the north, in other words 24 blocks long, the Calumet Expressway on the west and

the Stony Island Expressway on the east. Jim Pisco is standing right next to me. Jimmy, how wide is that? It's a little better than two miles, just a little longer. How long? It's three miles long. So three miles by two miles is the area of the harbor, that's pretty good size. Pretty good size, six square miles, that's a lot of place, a lot of land. Jimmy, I said earlier in the program and we first started broadcasting from this ship here, that I'd been here a number of years ago, I think it was about five, and they had practically nothing out here, and now only five years later you've developed a tremendous amount of property. I see that you've filled in a great part of the Calumet Lake so that you've made land out of it. You've built your highways, you're building rail facilities, and now you have a lot of warehouses here with the North Peer Terminal. How much space do you have in those warehouses? It's close to 300 ,000 square feet of space in the warehouses. Is that 200 ,000 in the backup warehouse, 178 ,000 in this number one

operated by North Peer, 72 ,000 by C .way, Steve Adoring, and 72 ,000 by Cal Harbor Terminals. To give the people who are not quite familiar with what the Calumet Harbor means to Chicago, why don't you explain just how the warehouses are operated. In other words, what's the purpose here of having the Calumet Harbor? You have, for example, the ship that we're standing on, the ship from Sweden right up in front of us, truck and rail facilities, but what actually happens out here? Well, here's what you want to consider right now. You're standing alongside of a transit ship. It isn't called a warehouse, it's a transit ship, and that means quick turnover. Material comes out of this ship, into the house, across the house, into cars and trucks, to be gotten out of here and hurry. The idea is to transship right across this dock as soon as possible. By the same token, you get stuff coming in by cars across the house, across the dock, and into the ship. The warehouse is more for long -term storage. They put stuff there for a week, a month, a year, and it's

strictly a storage proposition. But this is rapid exchange, back and forth across the dock. That's all there for. That's what they're primarily for. So that you can get rid of your goods off a ship at the earliest possible convenience, because it means $1 ,200 a day for one of these ships to lay in a harbor. So the sooner you get them off, the sooner you're going to make money for the shipping lines, and they're anxious to get back. So it works in a double purpose. Now you folks out here, all the engineers and everybody have been working for quite a long time, and you've been working very hard, because you couldn't have gotten that much done in such short space of time. For example, you've dredged out these channels here, and made them deeper than they were. First of all, they were only about two or three feet deep, weren't they? That's right. It's too our advantage to have it only two feet deep, because we need that bottom to make land. If we didn't have that, we'd have to import all the fill we want, and that's something around 20 million yards. Well, how deep do you make the channel when you dredge it out? Right now, it's 23. We're going to

make it 27 when the St. Lawrence's away, and the connecting channels are completed. Same as the St. Lawrence's away. Max, well, that St. Lawrence's away is completed. How much more will a shipping increase here at the Caldium at Harbor? We're expecting that in the first few years that a shipping auto increase in this harbor at least threefold. Now, what is the material which is shipped in here distributed to? Most of it here is going into what we call metropolitan Chicago, and the Hunelons back here about 250 miles in the grand circle. In a circle of Chicago. That's right. Now, that's occasioned by the fact that these are small boats, and because they're limitations in cargo carrying, they have to be highly selective in the business that they can handle, as well as take out a hair, and therefore their business has been limited to the short radius. You have every conceivable kind of cargo from grain to heavy steel beams that we see here and everything. That's right. You'll find the things that come in and out here are a perfect replica of what you see in the art ball tomorrow. New Orleans or any other place

here. Last time I was out here, I saw several cases of beer even. That's right. There has been a lot of beer that has moved through this port. German beer and Dutch beer especially. They keep you well supplied? I don't particularly care for it, but my friends do. Do you mean you mean? Well, yeah, I've had some. Not only that, but they've taken an awful lot of brandy and scotches. And no bourbon. No bourbon goes out, but it doesn't come in. Jimmy, I noticed the coast guard wouldn't let us go aboard that ship from Sweden up there. Why not? Well, that's one of those ships that's come from behind what we call the Iron Curtin, or it has touched a port of the Iron Curtin. In fear that some people might get off the dome belong here and try to stay, by the coast guard just watches everybody that goes in and out, and you can't get on without a security card or port security pass. The ship itself, of course, is from Sweden, which is not behind the Iron Curtin, but you say it probably touched somewhere. Yes, touched somewhere. It's picked up a cargo somewhere along the line where they would touch on a communist port.

This is really a foreign port, then, isn't it Max? Yes, you're seeing the start of what will truly be an international port. It is today on a small scale and will be much larger as we go along. Shiba, do you think we can go up and see the captain? I wish you would. He's anxious to meet you people. All right, let's go up there. We are now up in the cabin of the ship of Captain Carmine Orlando. Captain Orlando, how long have you been out of your home port? Fourteen months of out. Where is your home port? Home port is Genoa. But I've already nables. Your home is in Naples? Yes. How long has it been since you've been home to Naples? About fourteen months. Fourteen months, yeah. Captain, how do you like the harbor terminals here? How do you like the kind of harbor? The shed and the pier is very good, but many things that you have to do. Yes, well, I'm glad you said that. I mean, you're looking over here to Jimmy to see what to say, but I think

you can say just what you want to, and they don't mind. Where is the major problem? The problem is what I say the first time I come in, all of the bridge. Many bridge, you know. How many? Well, there are fourteen, but someone is not good. Some of the bridges aren't too good. Well, what do you have to wait for them to open? Yes, to wait the railroad bridges. And during night time when we come up, that is some difficulties, you know. But you like it out here as far as getting your cargo on and off as well. Oh, yes. I like it very much. I like. Well, I hope you come back here very often, Captain. Thank you. I hope so. Max, what about those bridges? Those bridges here have been with us now for twenty -five years. In 1935, the government authorized and passed a bill to rectify the river and the bridges. We're hopeful that the conditions that Captain speaks about will be out of the way in the next two years, and we're pointing

everything to that particular point. Well, Captain, thank you very much for allowing us to come board your ship and tell the story up here. Thank you. Now, Max, we've spent about as much time as we can with shipping, with bringing the ships into the harbor, and dumping the cargo and collecting a new cargo. Where should we go next? I think we ought to go over to the grain elevators, because as you know, we're going to become a very, very great, green port. And you'll have an opportunity of seeing some car operations, trucks, and things of that nature. All right, let's move on. We're standing now in a grain elevator, and three cars of grain, railroad cars, are being brought down to this general area. Max, what's the name of this company here now that's using these warehouses and also the grain elevators? This is the Rice Powell elevator. How many, all these cars loaded with grain here? Yes, these cars are all loaded with corn. With corn? That's right. Oh, what happens once they get these cars in here? They're going to take them right to this dump you, and discharge them. The grain will

go to the bottom and follow a regular line of conveyors in storage. Here come the cars now, pulled by what they call a track mobile. It's an automobile train combined. The automobile is sort of a Jeep looking affair, which sits up on top of a mechanism that is running on railroad wheels. And that is the pulling mechanism, which is pulling three carloads of grain. It looks like an automobile going, a Jeep going sideways. And it's a very powerful thing because it's pulling three cars filled with corn. Let's listen to it. Here it comes. Be right in front of us here dumping these carloads. The truck mobile just went by us, and now the first load of grain is just over the shoot down here. It's passing it.

I guess they're going to dump the last one first. First one just went by. The second one is halfway by. And now the third one is just pulling it into the elevator. The grain will be dumped out of the railroad car into a large shoot down there. And the last car is just about in place here. You're going to bring it all the way back. You're going to dump the first car first. You're going to bring it all the way back now and dump the first car first. So here they come. Takes just a couple of minutes for them to get into position. How does this mechanism work down here? Well, this beam, this batter beam goes in and pushes the grain doors out as the car is tilted forward towards the operator. And then the car is open. And the dump tilts to each side about 45 degrees and drops the grain into the hopper. From there it's belted into a leg

and goes upstairs to be weighed and distributed into the bins. Do you mean this thing picks up the entire box car? That's correct. Well, let's watch it. How long will it take her to get this car into position? Take them about, probably about 30 seconds and they'll have it in position, have it clamped in place, and it'll take us about five minutes to dump it. Well, we won't listen to the complete procedure, but let's wait for a few seconds here. The car is now in position, or very close to it. Now this big arm comes out here, is added, and grabs the car. When this outside door is open on the car, the grain is held inside the car with what we call grain doors. And this apparatus here with this arm in front that you see will push those grain doors out of the way as the car is tilted towards the operator. I see. Well where does the tilting take place, right here? That's right, this whole table tilts sideways, and then it tilts endways from both ends. So

that you get every bit of grain out of the car? That is correct. Here comes that big huge jaw coming up to clamp out of the box car. I'm sure you can hear that. Is that closing in on it from both ends? Well, it spots the car in the proper place, and the same time it clamps it into place. What's this rope going up here for? That's to open the outside door of the box car. All right, the clamps have grabbed onto either end of the box car. That'll hold it in place while it tips, is that right? That's correct. That holds it in place all the time as being tilted. Oh, there's a big huge clamp going onto the side of the box car, fitting over the door. Just try to uns - That's the ceilies breaking on the car. All those cars are sealed while they're in transit, and that's the ceilies breaking now. I see. It's breaking the ceiling

broken until we're ready to unload. Was he just working back and forth until the ceilies snapped? Yeah, they got it off. Just snapped it off of the bar. Now he's taking the lock apart. Okay, the signal for opening the door has been given, and the winch is beginning to move. It's just a minute the door ought to be opening. Here it comes. All right, the door is open, and now we can see the green door, which is just inside of the metal door of the box car. Now they have to unhook the belt. There it is. Drag the hook away that was hanging onto the door.

The door is open and ready for those big jaws to go to work up on the sides of the car. Number one. Man is looking up into the box car now to see. That's the border trade man. Now he's getting the height of the grain, which they use in their estimating of the cubic capacity of the car to determine whether or not there's been any leaks in transit. In other words, somebody doesn't want to get cheated, so they've got the border trade man down here. That's right. They supervise it. Here comes the car now, chelting to the left, chelting counterclockwise. Listen, you can hear the grain dumping out now. That's

one of the strangest operations I've ever seen, a huge box car loaded with grain. What kind of grain is that? This is sweet in this case. It's tilted 45 degrees to the left. It looked like it was going to fall over. And now it's tilted 45 degrees lengthwise. Right down here below it's the bottom of the box car. Looking up way to the top of the elevator is the top of the box car. Now it's going down even deeper yet. That's right out of 45 degree angle, isn't it? Just about, yes. So what are that box car doesn't slide off of there? It's going down even further now. Well, these clamps will hold it into place. They have limit switches on them that just allow them to come up to the point where they hold and it can't possibly slip out of there. Now the load has been tilted on this end and all the grain run off from that side of the car. Now we'll elevate it the other way and tilt the car in the other direction to let the grain run out from the other side. See those big wheels moving down there? You

can just imagine how powerful this winch must be. To tilt this huge box car filled with grain and dump it out. Of course it gets lighter all the time. It's tilted way up now and the grain is just about out. Well, that's about as much time as we're going to be able to spend here, but that's how grain from every part of the world is brought into the caddiment harbored terminal, dumped here and stored in the huge grain elevators. Where is this from, this particular grain? It's more than likely since I don't know for sure at some place out of the state here, I would say probably southern Illinois in this case. I mean, I haven't checked to see where the road of transit that it came over. Now this or a grain came in through rail transportation. I suppose you also get some by truck and by barge and boat. We handle grain by truck, box car and barge and boat. Because the company made a wise move coming out here to the caddiment harbored terminal. I would say they made a very wise move. Thank you very much.

We've come up now to the opening of the railroad box car. The operation is all finished and all the grain is dumped out. There's a man went in with a broom just a minute ago to sweep out the last few grains of wheat and saw the operation is completed. We are now aboard the engine of the Rock Island freight train, which is moving 25 carloads of cargo around the caddiment harbour. Jimmy, what's this fellow pushing here? I'm pushing corn and grain wheat possibly for the elevators. Moving this right on over into the elevators. While he's moving them into a siding, so the elevators can get them when they need them. He'll be ready to shift them in just as soon as they make a call for them. Now where do they pick these cars up? They pick them up over there yard, which is over here at 113. And they throw our car to go after them.

Well, he's about ready to go into the siding here and snap. So we're better, we better be thinking about jumping off because I don't want to talk to Max Cohen about some of the future of the caddiment harbour. We've talked about the past. We've talked about the present, but it certainly got a long way to go. And we want to talk to Max about that. So we better jump off the train. What do you say? Bye. We've come back to the office of the Chicago Regional Port District. And we're going to talk once again to the manager, Max Cohen. Max, as I said, we've done some discussion of the present. You and I talked about the past a little while ago and we were out on the ship. And now let's talk something about the future of the Chicago Port District. What's going to happen out here at the caddiment harbour terminal that we haven't seen so far? I think what you're going to see here in the next few years is the buildup of a group of new integrated facilities. Now, when you start talking about a large harbour,

you'll have to think of more than just simply the shed that you look at. You'll have to think of the trucking concourses, the trucks that will come in and out, the yards that have to hold these grain cars, and the thousand and one other things that are necessary for the kind of a setup that we need in Chicago. One of the great problems we've got staring us in the face right now is a dredging problem of about three and a half million yards of material that have to be taken out of the Anchorage Basin to make the tank farm and also supply us with this mooring area that we need. Because we figure we have to supply accommodations to store at least 50 barges a day. You'll remember we talked about the ability in this spot to have the barge that is shallow water transportation and deep water meet. It's the only spot at this end of the North American content where we can do it. It's one of these invaluable assets that no other city possesses. What's the tank farm? The tank farm is a facility that will consist of a huge

quantity of tanks to hold grease, large petrochemicals, oils, and all sorts of different things in bulk. And it's absolutely essential to round out the facilities. In other words, you don't have a great harbour without tanks, just the same as you don't have it without the elevators. So the immediate problem, as we see it here, is the build up of some additional lands which we'll make naturally out of dredging. The creation of a new slip that will supply us another 6 ,000 feet of dockage. The build up of these backup facilities for trucks. And as we go along, everything will have to be constructed in harmony so that all forms of transportation can be blended into what is needed here. Well, you have what you call phase one in operation now, your under construction. What will phase one be when it is completed? Phase one here is actually completed now. You've seen it out here. It consists of the two huge six and a half million bushel grain elevators, the three sheds with 300 ,000 feet of space in it, and this big backup warehouse with another 200 ,000 feet in the railroad yard with 14 miles of tracks. That made up number one. Well, now that

you've finished phase one, Max, when will phase two start and what will it have? We're hopeful you that phase two can start within the year to 18 months, and it will consist of a new slip that will be 3 ,000 feet long by 400 feet in width. And we hope to build up one side of it to start with with another 3 ,000 feet of dockage and three huge transit sheds behind it with approximately 300 ,000 square feet in it. Well, now Max, you can handle a number of ships on this slip you already have. How many for out here? This 3 ,500 feet of warfers that you looked at here can handle 12 ships very comfortably of the size that you see out there now. And when the seaway is functioning, it ought to be able to accommodate eight conventional seaway ships. And then another eight or ten in the other slip? That's right, when it's built. How many total slips will you have when it's all finished? When it's all finished to you, the master plan calls for approximately 40 ,000 linear feet of commercial

birthage on the west side of the lake. In other words, that's enough space to take care of 100 ships simultaneously when it's completed. Wow, that gives us an idea of just how gigantic and mammoth this project is out here. That really makes it a great international port. Yes, the port has got to be more than just an international port. It's true, that's one phase of it. It's also got to be a large domestic port for the interchange of local business, lake boats and barges. Well, it's certainly interesting to hear about this tremendous operation out here, Max, and what you've already finished. And we want to thank you very much for allowing us to come out and take a tour and tell a story of how you fell as a build up the caddiment harbor. Thank you very much and thanks to Jimmy Pisco. That's along you. And that's the story of the caddiment harbor. This is Hugh Hill speaking.