Chicago History Teacher

[Guest]

This was a great post from our Chicago History Teacher with even better replies. Thanks to All. I'm also a kid from the 50's, Toledo born, with family in Chicago. Are there any memories for Pullman, Edison Park, West De Koven, South Halsted, and Wheeling you could pass on to us I-90 visitors? I have plans for a Cubs game @ August 21 from Wheeling. Is there anything I should be looking for on the Metra to Union Station or the Red Line to Wrigley?

[Paul Anderson]

Mr. Lafferty, thanks for your web research on the fate of Calumet Hullets. It's sad they're gone because "forgottenchicago.com" is chartering a Calumet river cruise to showcase what heavy industry is not on the river any longer.
Torgy1962, those are great photos! Thanks for sharing! It's too bad they couldn't be on display like the gate to the Union Stockyard.

[torgy1962]

The last two Hullets on earth were dismantled on the Calumet river just a couple of months ago. It would be interesting to hear if anything at all remains.

According to a posting a week ago online at the Steel Industry Forum, there are no traces of the Huletts left.

Yes they are gone. Here they are at the end of May 2008. Two of the C&P Huletts were saved (in pieces) in Cleveland. Their future is uncertain.

[Timerover51]

Wow! This might be a good start for a movie on the "then versus now" theme. Sounds like there are a few folks left that can recall what the area once looked like and maybe they could even recall stories of the workers and their personal stories. I have been through the area in my own fishing boat and could envision some of the greatness that this area once held. Sure is a shame to see the ruins today and realize whats been lost, eh?

It would be a good theme for a show on WTTW, Chicago's PBS station. They have done similar things for the old Chicago Stockyards and the old Pullman Factory area. I can remember how enormously busy things were when I was growing up, between the hot-steel carrying freight trains to the barges loaded with coke for the steel plants to the 4 or 5 bulk carriers loading grain at the grain elevators.

[Guest]

Wow! This might be a good start for a movie on the "then versus now" theme. Sounds like there are a few folks left that can recall what the area once looked like and maybe they could even recall stories of the workers and their personal stories. I have been through the area in my own fishing boat and could envision some of the greatness that this area once held. Sure is a shame to see the ruins today and realize whats been lost, eh?

[marsaf]

1. Suggest you contact Chicago Park District Field House at Calumet Park, they have a small but very interesting museum about the South Chicago/Southeast side area. Museum is run by a retired history teacher.
2. Because of Homeland Security regs you find it hard to gain access or get close to any waterside areas, but given more time there are many interesting historical items in private collections that maybe accessed for a future field trip.
Please e-mail me at tms@g-lakes.com to discuss.

[William Lafferty]

The last two Hullets on earth were dismantled on the Calumet river just a couple of months ago. It would be interesting to hear if anything at all remains.

According to a posting a week ago online at the Steel Industry Forum, there are no traces of the Huletts left.

[William Lafferty]

I can remember a small Lake boat that was sitting rusting away in the Harbor back in the late 1970s. Might anyone know which boat that was?

Between 1958 and 1962 the black hull and red pilothouse of the abandoned sandsucker *Gilbert* laid partially sunken across the channel at Lake Calumet Harbor. It was raised in 1962 when the land to the north was sold for use by Union Tank Car, and cut down to a crane barge. During the 60s and 70s several vessels laid forlorn in for periods on Lake Calumet proper, including the *Charles Hubbard,* *Daniel Pierce,* and *Photinia.*

[Paul Anderson]

The last two Hullets on earth were dismantled on the Calumet river just a couple of months ago. It would be interesting to hear if anything at all remains.

[Timerover51]

William, the recital of what used to be on Calumet Harbor and the Calumet River brought back a lot of memories of my growing up in the south suburb of Dolton, and seeing most of those plants every time we drove up to Chicago. That was about 50 years ago as well. It is hard to imagine most of that is gone now. I can remember a small Lake boat that was sitting rusting away in the Harbor back in the late 1970s. Might anyone know which boat that was?

[William Lafferty]

Let me take you on a tour of the Calumet River as it existed when I was a kid, fifty years ago, to give you some idea of the mammoth "de-industrialization" that has taken place along its banks over that half-century. At the entrance to the river, on the north, lay the massive facilities of the South Works of US Steel, in 1959 one of the world's most massively concentrated integrated steel works, employing over twenty thousand, with two slips (one off the lake, the other off the Calumet) to serve Pittsburgh SS boats unloading ore, or the occasional salty loading coke. It is now abandoned grassland. Across from the South Works was the Iroquois Iron Works of the Youngstown Sheet & Tube plant which also received iron ore along its river frontage to feed its three blast furnaces. YS&T closed the plant in the '60s and it became Iroquois Landing, touted to be a container facility that never fulfilled expectations, but is the only major landing for foreign vessels on the Calumet today.

Past the 92nd Street bridge, on the south, was a turning basin the banks of whicht housed the floating equipment of the Great Lakes D&DCo, headquartered in Chicago, but long gone from that spot. Across from there was a giant grain elevator that saw continuous service loading lakers and salties into the '60s, but long gone now. Next door was Howard Slip, home to the Calumet SB&DDCo, a small firm that nevertheless became a pre-eminent builder of tugs and towboats, and had a huge World War II building program. It closed in 1962. Across the river from it was the old South Chicago Coal & Fuel dock, fronting 95th Street. In the '50s the yard became International Steamship Terminals and was the primary berthing spot for foreign vessels on the river into the late '70s. It now stores pleasure craft.

Just south of 100th Street on the east bank was the shipbuilding plant of the American SBCo, which, as the Chicago SBCo, built some of the largest and most innovative craft on the lakes until after World War when it reverted to repair and conversion work only, but maintained a high level of activity until it, too, closed in the '70s. Across the river from it is the KCBX coal facility which began life in 1948 as Rail-to-Water Transfer, created by a consortium of primarily Kentucky coal producers to provide water shipment of their product. It was built on the site of several major warehouses, including the oddly named Crooks Terminal, which serviced package freighters before the war. With end of the package freight trade after the war, RtW purchased the land and built the facility.

Farther south on the west was the huge General Mills grain elevator which saw much traffic until the 1970s and closed down in 1995. Across from it to the east was (is) the large plant of the Marblehead Lime Co. that received continuous shipments of stone from both self-unloaders and straight-deckers alike. It is now Carmeuse.

Below 106th was, to the east, the mammoth Wisconsin Steel Works of International Harvester, which had two slips for receiving coal and iron. Across the river was Valley Mold & Iron, with dockage on the river for receiving ore, stone, and coal. Below them, on both sides of the river, was the Interlake Iron Co. with a slip to the east and dockage down both sides of the river. All of these installations had huge clamshell bridges for unloading lake boats. Down the east side was the Republic Steel plant with its Hulett unloaders. Across from Republic were the mammoth grain elevators of Central Soya to the north and Cargill to the south, which transferred immense tonnages of grain. Today, virtually all this gargantuan industrial presence is completely gone.

Beyond the Ford Motor Company plant at the bend (still there), on the south shore of Lake Calumet and the Little Calumet River was Calumet Harbor Terminal, like International Steamship an early destination for salties after the war. During the war Pullman-Standard established a shipbuilding plant at the site and produced PC-Es and LSMs for the navy. To its west was Lake Calumet Harbor, the Chicago Regional Port District facility that was the hub of foreign shipping at Chicago, encompassing four large transit sheds and warehouses and two gigantic, state-of-the-art grain elevators at the west. Although the grain elevators are partially used today, the rest of the facility is decrepit (as seen in Steven Seagal’s 1988 film Above the Law).

In May 1959 my father and I took a boat trip on the Wendella sponsored by the Chicago Academy of Sciences that travelled the South Branch to the Sanitary and Ship Canal, the Cal-Sag, and up the Calumet, returning to the Loop by Lake Michigan. There were 14 salties and two lakers (both at the elevators) at Lake Calumet, 14 lakers on the Calumet, and three salties (two at International Steamship, including Louis Dreyfus’s Charles L-D) and one at the grain elevator between 92nd and 95th. Inside the breakwater were at least half-a-dozen salties awaiting berths, and two Paterson canallers rafted together and two Upper Lakes boats (R. Bruce Angus and Howard L. Shaw) at anchor, among others, waiting to load grain.

Those were the days.

[JC]

Try the Chicago Public Library on 106th Street. They used to have quite a bit about the local history. I have only been sailing since 1977 and have seen Republic Steel, Acme Steel, United States Steel, North and South works, Wisconsin Steel, and American Ship Building all disappeared, quite a change. The neighborhood went from predominantly Slavic to Hispanic; very interesting.

[pcolachap]

Hello Monahan, I would suggest several possible sites for your tour. The USS South Works sites would be one. Another would be the abandoned American Ship Building area on the Calumet River.
Also the old International Harvester/ Envirodine Steel plant. Still another area would be what was referred to as the Federal Furnace in the early 80s, up the Calumet River. This may be the same place that was later known was Acme Steel. I wish I could join you. Have a great trip! Mike ~an old teacher too!

[Monahan]

Greetings,

I am a history teacher in Chicago and a longtime user of this website. I head down to the South Chicago/Hegwisch neighborhood when I can to catch the boats in and out.

Next Tuesday, as part of a summer class on Chicago History, I'm taking a group of students on a bus tour through the area. If you know anything about the operations of the KCBX terminal, the Beemsterboer Terminal, Morton Salt, Carmeuse Lime, Cargill Salt, St. Mary's Cement, any of the lift bridges/railroad lines, grain elevator, Acme Coke Plant, Calumet Park, etc. (essentially anything remotely related to the South Shore/Hegwisch neighborhood history, I'd greatly appreciate it.)

I also hope to catch a few boats transiting the Calumet river while we're down there.

The focus of our trip will be a discussion of De-industrialization, what the rust belt is and what it looks like, and neighborhood change on the southside.