Ohio and Western Pennsylvania Dock Company records

The Ohio and Western Pennsylvania Dock Company of Cleveland, Ohio operated under the control of the Hanna Mining Company and the Pennsylvania Railroad. The docks were originally built a few years after the discovery of the Marquette Range, the enormous iron ore fields found on the shores of the upper Great Lakes. The Marquette Iron Company, organized in Cleveland, claimed ownership of the Marquette Range, which was later known as the Cleveland mine. The flow of ore from the Range established Cleveland's position as a prominent iron transshipping port.

In 1852 Chisholm, Jones & Company (now American Steel and Wire) and Otis Steel Co. (now Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation) were formed on Whiskey Island at the mouth of the Cuyahoga; the following year the waterfront was used as a harbor. Coincident with the development in iron ore shipping into Cleveland, the movement of coal to the city for transport back up to lake sites began to take place. The two trades have since become inseparable.

In 1867 special unloading facilities were installed on Whiskey Island, on what was then the east side of the Cuyahoga's mouth. To replace the slow method of the hand shovel and the wheelbarrow, iron tubs made specially for the purpose were lowered into the holds of the ships by means of ropes passed through the ship's rigging. After being filled by shovelers, the ore was then dumped into wheelbarrows and pushed along platforms above the railroad cars and then spilled into the cars.

The Pennsylvania Railroad leased the Cleveland and Pittsburgh (Ohio Western and Pennsylvania) lines and docks in 1871. Few basic changes were made in handling equipment until 1889 when Pennsylvania inaugurated its first program for applying new standards of efficiency for transferring ore from ships to railroad cars. The first step was the erection of four cantilever type mechanical unloaders on Dock 1 in the old riverbed. While one handling was being mechanized, new equipment was also being devised to speed the transfer of coal from railroad cars to vessels. The first effective car dumper was built in 1895. The dumper elevated a railroad car, turned it sideways, and spilled the coal onto a funnel-shaped apron, from where it flowed through a mechanically-controlled chute into the ship. The basic principle has remained the same ever since.

By 1908 the ore docks at Whiskey Island ranked as the fastest unloading plant anywhere. The Pennsylvania Railroad, looking even further ahead, made its decision to scrap its Whiskey Island operations in favor of a larger, and entirely new dock, to be built not in the river but on the lake front, thus eliminating the trips of the bulk freighters around the hairpin curves of the Cuyahoga.

Making of land in the West Breakwater basin of Cleveland Harbor was begun in 1910, and a year later newly designed unloading machines with unprecedented efficiency were installed. Four Hulett unloaders, each with a bucket of 17 tons rated capacity, were erected on new docks of reinforced concrete. The Hulett unloaders are the solid arm type, each being electrically controlled by an operator riding in a cab directly above the bucket, able to see what he is doing far more clearly than any previous type of machine. Ore from vessels is picked up in gigantic bites and discharged first into a receiving hopper, then into a weighing hopper, and finally into railroad cars on the four tracks below, one track for each machine.

The conception and design of the big Huletts are the ultimate contribution made by Cleveland engineering and construction companies to the success of the docks. Virtually all of the unloading devices, beginning with the original ore unloaders of 1889, were designed and built by Cleveland companies. No record such as this would be complete without an acknowledgment of the skill and ingenuity of these organizations. In turn, the millions of dollars spent in Cleveland for the enormous machines which they devised undoubtedly played an effective part in enlarging the city's economic structure.

From hand shovels to Huletts from 100 tons a day to 4,000 tons an hour, that was the progress in performance reflected by the technological innovations made by the companies associated with the Cleveland dock.

Through the years, Pennsylvania Railroad's Cleveland and Pittsburgh (Ohio and Western Pennsylvania) Division has operated other docks to handle lake shipments of merchandise freight. Although this traffic is important, the Hulett unloader is the chief contribution of the docks to the industrial strength of Cleveland. Upon the bankruptcy of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the ownership and operation of the docks was transferred to ConRail, under which the Hanna Mining Company and the Ohio and Western Pennsylvania Dock Company operate today.