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The SIA did an article on the Hueletts a few years ago...that was my intro to that technology.

 

Speaking of unloaders, has anyone here been to the Upper Penninsula or northern Wisconsin to see how the ore boats where loaded...those massive ore docks? 

Those things are awesome.  They add that needed touch of grit.

yeah...........where are the others in the world?

^there were two or three on the lake and a few near the steel plant over in lorain too. maybe in toledo or ashtabula too (not sure)?

 

the 100% grit-tastic old shots below are from the cool lorain county historical society website. enjoy!:

 

 

steel plant, photo of river docks showing ore through, one bridge and hullet unloaders, 3/1/1910

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Steel Plant - Installed on side of Larry Car track on #1 and #4 Hullet Unloaders - NTC Lorain Works

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view of ore docks showing ore holding trough bridges, hullet unloaders, 3/1/1910, steel plant photo

441.jpg

 

"Robinson" of the Bradley Line, a self-unloader at dock in Lorain.

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steel plant - STR. Issac Elsworth, Lake Terminal Locomotive #20 $ Cleveland - Lorain Coal Lighter

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back of print: 1930's era on paper insert: Perchival Roberts Jr., unloading iron ore at N.T.C. Dock ore clocks and huletts ore unloaders on paper insert: In 1934, Natioal Tube produced more than 1,500,000 toms of steel ingots nd employed nearly 10,000 men. Shown above from the 1930's is the Perchival Reoberts Jr. unloading iron ore at the National tube Company ore docs with the Huletts ore unloaders. Steel Mills in Lorain date from 1845 on false -color calendar reproduction: Precival Roberts Jr. unloading at the National Tube Company docks - Lorain, Ohio - built in 1913 on photocopy: pg. 113 # 196

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Lake Erie, Black River, Ohio Citizen's Gas and Electric, ship at ore docks and Hullett unloaders in Lorain harbor.

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Man, those are some great pics.

Wow!

Anyone know where the most active docks are now? Toledo? Conneaut?

Here is a nice pic:

 

 

  • 11 months later...

From Crain's:

 

Port Authority ponders move for Huletts

By DAVID BENNETT

 

6:00 am, March 27, 2006

 

Article Removed

  • 2 months later...

Join Councilman Zone, City Planning, and others in a Public Meeting to discuss the future of the historic Hulett Ore Unloaders next week Thursday, June 22nd at 7:00 PM at the Gordon Square Arcade.  Please feel free to forward this message to others who may be interested in this discussion.

I must've missed this thread before, or I don't remember it. Anyway, this is an absolutely fantastic picture! I remember when America used to make things (not just fast food or insurance)....

 

510.jpg

"In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck

Great shots, MrNYC!

 

Here's a not-so-good-news article from today's PD:

 

Putting Huletts back together might prove to be too much

Councilman cites costs in suggesting only pieces be saved

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Sarah Hollander

Plain Dealer Reporter

 

Article Removed

From what I know, Zone is a pretty good councilman.  While I would trust his judgment, I wish that the PD would publish some of the numbers that make this cost prohibitive.

There was an announcement about a public meeting this Thursday.  Why isn't it referenced in the article.  Go PD Go!

****

 

Public Meeting Announcement

 

Discuss the future of the Historic Hulett Ore Unloaders!

 

Thursday, June 22nd

7:00 PM

at the Gordon Square Arcade

6515 Detroit Avenue

 

This meeting is co-sponsored by the Cleveland City Planning Commission and Councilman Matt Zone.

 

For more information, please see the attached notice, or call the Cleveland City Planning Commission at 216.664.2210

 

I posted that above and was also dismayed that they did not mention it in the article.

Anyone go to this? Any news?  I wish I could have gone. 

 

I have a HUGE fascination with the Hulett's. Man, I wish I moved to CLE while those things were still running, must have been impressive to see.

 

omg, i knew it would come to this.  :cry:

 

anyone know what happened at that meeting???

 

these must be preserved, they are a priceless local historical relic of our industrial past.

 

  • 1 year later...

Has there been any recent news on the status of the preservation of the Hulett ore loaders? 

 

The port of Glasgow, Scotland has preserved its historically significant Titan crane and redeveloped it into a tourist destination.  Details of the plan can be viewed at the following website:  www.titanclydebank.com.  The city of Belfast, Northern Ireland also has plans to preserve two of its industrial landmark cranes, nicknamed Samson and Goliath. 

 

Could these developments provide an example to Cleveland?  One of the primary difficulties mentioned in the initial preservation plans was finding an adequate site.  Most of the attention was focused on the Flats and Downtown Cleveland (specifically near the site of the proposed Canal Basin Park or near the Lakefront by the steamship Mather).  Both of these sites presented some major difficulties, given the enormous size of the Huletts. 

 

Were other potential locations considered?  Would a site further inland down the Cuyahoga River be more appropriate and financially more viable? Is there any way that redevelopment of the Huletts could be combined with the Towpath Trail and planned extension of the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad into downtown Cleveland?

 

A site outside of downtown could provide a gateway for the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad into downtown and also provide a historical link to its original function.  There certainly seems to be plenty of underutilized available sites west of the Carnegie Lorain Bridge and Inner Belt Bridge.  Imagine the following:

 

• Both Hulett ore loaders reassembled, refurbished, and re-painted in metallic silver, bronze and gold lit up in the evening sky in similar fashion to the bridges in the Flats. 

 

• Two viewing platforms built into the Huletts surveying Downtown Cleveland, the Cuyahoga, and Industrial Valley (with North, South, East and West views).

 

•The railroad tracks of the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad going through the Huletts and providing its riders with an unbelievable and unique historical experience in its final approach to Downtown Cleveland. 

 

I'm not sure if it is too late for a plan like this to succeed, but I would like to know if there is any recent news the status of the Huletts. 

 

I haven't heard anything lately. I suppose a lot of this is going to depend on the development of the Canal Basin Park -- an often-discussed location for the Huletts. We could hear something about Canal Basin Park sometime later this year. Whether the Huletts are part of it is the question.

"In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck

Anyone go to this? Any news?  I wish I could have gone. 

 

I have a HUGE fascination with the Hulett's. Man, I wish I moved to CLE while those things were still running, must have been impressive to see.

 

^ Yeah dude, I remember my dad taking my brothers and I up to Conneaut and we'd swing by the Pittsburgh & Conneaut Dock Co. office parking lot to see those (there were 4) in action at night. This was the late 80's and there was still 1 freighter on the lakes that hadn't been converted to a self-unloader, so the Hulett's were still required to unload this 1 ship. They were torn down along with the towering ore bridge in the late 80's/early 90's. Conneaut was once the largest ore-receiving port in the world and now they just do a trickle of what they once did ore-wise; it is still a busy coal-shipping port. Those things were awesome to see at night....I remember George Condon describing the ones on Whiskey Island as 'giant mechanical grasshoppers' or something to that effect. Spot on. I hope these can be preserved somehow.

  • 4 months later...

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/05/whatever_happened_to_the_hulet.html

 

Whatever happened to ... the Hulett unloaders?

By V. David Sartin May 26, 2008 05:04AM

 

Q. Will the giant Hulett ore unloaders -- seen by some as the symbol of Cleveland's 20th century industrial might -- ever be rebuilt and on display?

 

The Huletts have been sitting in pieces amid scrub brush at the west end of Whiskey Island since 2000 with little hope of being rebuilt soon.

  • 10 years later...

A press release...

 

https://www.dvidshub.net/news/283749/buffalo-district-and-partners-sign-cleveland-huletts-agreement

 

Buffalo District and partners sign Cleveland Huletts agreement

BUFFALO, NY, UNITED STATES

07.10.2018

Story by Jess Levenson

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Buffalo District 

 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Buffalo District, Cleveland Port Authority, and several Cleveland preservation groups signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) June 1, 2018, resolving 20 years of debate over dredging the Cleveland Bulk Terminal and its impact on the Cleveland Huletts.

 

Hulett Iron Ore Unloaders ("Huletts") were enormous ore unloading machines, two of which stand where the Cuyahoga River flows into Lake Erie on the Pennsylvania Railway Ore Dock located on Whiskey Island. These Huletts operated continuously from 1912 to 1992, and were designated a Cleveland Historic Landmark in 1993, a National Register of Historic Places in 1997, and a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1998.

 

“The MOA states we have three years to work together as a working group and reach an agreement on what to do with the two Huletts,” said Mark Scalabrino, Buffalo District Chief of the Ohio Application Evaluation Section. “If no agreement is reached, the Port Authority will have the right to move the Huletts.”

 

“We reached a viable solution by considering the wants and needs of each party,” Scalabrino continued. “Everyone did an excellent job improving relationships with the consulting parties, applicant and agencies.”

Reaching a solution took nearly two decades.

 

In 1999, the Port Authority’s dredging needs brought the Huletts and numerous organizations into convoluted legal engagements and mitigation decisions.

 

“Nobody agreed on how or where to display the Huletts,” said Scalabrino. “They simply continued to rust and deteriorate, which, I believe, gave people a sense of urgency to find a solution.”

 

“These enormous machines were very influential to the Great Lakes shipping industry,” Scalabrino explained. “Before, people had to offload cargo over several days using wheelbarrows and shovels. Huletts sped up the process to a few hours.”

 

The MOA requires a written report combining previously published scholarly work relevant to the Pennsylvania Railway Ore Dock and Huletts' history into a single resource. The report will then be filed with the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office and the State Library of Ohio.

 

“The MOA is a win-win-win scenario,” said Scalabrino. “Local historic organizations will be able to negotiate a solution for the Huletts, the Port Authority will be able to restore the Cleveland Bulk Terminal to suitable navigational depths, and the Army Corps of Engineers will fulfill its responsibility to make a permit decision.”

 

END

"In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck

  • 5 years later...

Huletts-Cleveland-March-8-1948-Glenn-Zah

 

One Hulett may be saved — in Canton
By Ken Prendergast / March 22, 2024

 

Where once there was four Hulett Ore Unloaders, soon there will be none. But at least one of the massive, dinosaur-like machines that revolutionized the steel industry and Great Lakes shipping through high-volume efficiency, now has a chance to survive extinction.

 

MORE:

https://neo-trans.blog/2024/03/22/one-hulett-may-be-saved-in-canton/

"In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck

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