LAND USE BORDERING THE CALUMET RIVER AND LAKE CALUMET IN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

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1 LAND USE BORDERING THE CALUMET RIVER AND LAKE CALUMET IN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS William D. Curran* and Martin W. Reinemann The Calumet River- Lake Calumet area within the City of Chicago, Illinois comprises a complexity of manufacturing, transportation, service, and storage facilities at a magnitude rarely found other than in coastal port locations. The area contains a major portion of the Calumet district's heavy basic industries and constitutes the principal port area of metropolitan Chicago. The historical developments of the industrial and port activities in the area have been ably chronicled by Mayer' and Appleton' and do not bear repeating here. The objectives of this paper are to provide a detailed description and evaluation of the forty-nine sites bordering on the Calumet River and Lake Calumet and to explain the existing interrelationships between individual facilities and services. 'Wi lliam D. Curran is an instructor of Geography at Thornton Community College in Harvey, Illinois and Dr. Reinemann is Professor of Geography at Northern Illinois Univers ity at DeKalb, Ill inois. Characteristics of the Calumet River Calumet Harbor, or South Chicago Harbor, is located at the head of the Calumet River in Lake Michigan. It is within the shelter of a breakwater and has "an anchorage of about 850 acres.'" It is from this point that the sinuous six mile long Calumet River commences. This junction, originally the mouth, is now the fount of the river due to the reversal of the flow of the river in 1922 by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. The river flows southwest from its old mouth at about 89th Street to 92nd Street where it turns southward to flow parallel with, and 17

2 eventually away from its source, Lake Michigan. At 122nd Street, the river veers southwest into " The Forks" (Turning Basin # 5). Here the St. Lawrence Seaway-Great Lakes system of northern United States and southern Canada connects with the vast inland waterways of the Mississippi River system that extend south to the Gulf of Mexico (the latter system accommodates barges only, while the former is developed for lake and/or ocean vessels). West, from " The Forks" a short branch of the Calumet River connects Lake Calumet with the main channel of the river. The main channel of the serpentine Calumet River is two hundred feet wide and is twenty-seven feet deep. Water volume and level are maintained along the Cal-Sag Channel primarily by locks and dams. These ensure safe vertical clearance of water traffic under the bridges, prevent the reversal of industrially polluted w ater into Lake Michigan, and regulates the flow of water from Lake Michigan into the Mississippi river via the Illinois Waterway. A second major factor controlling depth is the constant dredging of the main channel by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. It is necessary to control the levels of the waterways because natural fluctuations would not be desirable in such a highly industrialized and commercialized urban area. Seasonal variations of this area' s climate have little effect on the river. Shipping terminates on Lake Michigan during the winter and this restricts allied economic activities in the region. Since the velocity of the current of the Calumet River is only one-fourth to one-half mile per hour the river would normally freeze during the cold winter months. Ice occurs in portions of Lake Michigan and in other local bodies of water, but man's activities have resulted in an open and navigable Calumet River throughout the year, even though water traffic is light during the winter. One reason is that there is a considerable discharge of hot industrial sewage into the Calumet River. Another is the winter activity of vessels. During the winter months, floating maintenance equipment is in operation, as is the shuttle movement of large vessels out of and into dry dock and to and from winter berths along the river. Tugboats and towboats are active on the river throughout the year. The standard river barge in tow along the Calumet complex is 175 feet in length and is 26 feet wide with a 9 foot draft. Its capacity is 1,000 tons and it is a capable ice breaker when propelled by the average 6,000 horsepower towboat: A 4,500 horsepower diesel engine powers the tugboats in the study area. One serious problem along the Calumet River is the presence of eleven low bridges athwart the busy river. Six are railroad bridges (three vertical lift; two bascule or jackknife, and one swing) and five are municipal traffic bridges (four bascule and one lift). These bridges are often the cau se of long delays for rail, water and land traffic, and are a strong deterrent to the full potential development of the inland port. A twelfth bridge over the river, the Chicago Skyway bridge, constructed with a sufficient vertical clearance of 125 feet. The greatest concentration of bridges is between 95th Street and 100th Street, three railroad bridges, and three municipal traffic bridges. The three railroad bridges are collectively known as the " Iron Curtain." Serious damage here cou ld delay both river and rail traffic indefinitely and the bridges, therefore constitute a serious problem, especially since many are obsolete. In mid-september, 1965, the horizontal span of a bridge was being dismantled under the current river improvement program and a section fell 18

3 into the river. This accident halted river traffic for about four days. Two impeding railroad swing bridges -that were navigational hazardsalong the approach to Lake Calumet have been removed. The Norfolk and Western Railway bridge was replaced by a vertical lift bridge. The other will be replaced by a new bascule bridge for the Calumet Western Railway. Characteristics of Lake Calumet Lake Calumet-presently the largest lake within the confines of the Chicago Metropolitan Area-is essentially the broad branch of its progenitor, the Calumet River, which connects it with Lake Michigan. This shallow, swampyshored lake, originally about 2,300 acres in extent, is about two miles in length and one-half mile in width. The size of Lake Calumet has been and is being reduced from its original acreage through several means: 1. The filling in of approximately six hundred acres by the City of Chicago with municipal garbage and refuse at the north end, 2. The construction and subsequent expansion of Doty Avenue along the west shore of the lake into the present six-lane Calumet Expressway (a major north-south artery on the city's south side, connecting with the Dan Ryan Expressway), 3. The filling in of the southeastern portion of Lake Calumet for the purpose of erecting the $12,000,000 liquid bulk terminal for the storage of fats and oils by Bulk Terminals Company, a subsidiary of Union Tank Car Company, 4. The building of the $2,000,000 Shell Petroleum storage and the liquid mixing facilities on landfill, at the east edge of the lake, 5. The construction of facilities for EmEsCo Industries, at the east end of the lake to store and transfer bulk cargoes, 6. The construction of the $10,000,- 000 Welded Steel Tube Manufacturing plant along the east shore, 7. The erecting of a temporary dike across Lake Calumet at 116th Street. The area of the lake north of this dike will eventually be drained for the site of the new Metropolitan Chicago Food Center. If development proceeds as planned, it will consist of 240 acres for a wholesale food operation that includes the twelve-story Pullman Bank & Trust Company, an electrical substation of Commonwealth Edison Company, National Tea Company warehouse and other commercial facilities that will centralize the now randomly located food wholesaling business of the Chicago area. Located at the southern section of Lake Calumet are the specially designed facilities and modern equipment that handle both commercial and industrial cargoes of all types. These inland port facilities, completed in 1957 and leased to private companies, are where rail, ship, and truck lines meet to transfer and exchange the diverse imports and exports of the fifty-six countries with which the Port of Chicago has transactions. The immediate environs of Lake Calumet are vacant, thus providing available land for future commercial and industrial expansion which can be developed to utilize the present and planned port facilities at Calumet Harbor. This area is zoned for industry and has for development and expansion about eighty per cent of the nearly 7.7 square miles that are currently vacant in Chicago proper: Land Uses The area under study consists of forty-nine sites along the banks of the Calumet River and along the shores of Lake Calumet. A site is defined here as either a public or private land holding, having either river or lake frontage. The major functions have been classi- 19

4 THE CALUMET RIVER AND LAKE CALUMET LAKE MICHIGAN LAND USE 1961 IRe., i,.d 1965) (Revised 1970) SCALE "I S,OOO MIU:S ""TUn, I O ~ 1.0 E 10'III.SI _wm_/tl D. C.. rranuc LAKE CALU MET LEGEND ~ inqustrial ~ COMMERCIAL GOVERN MENT D RESIDENTIAL [] VACANT TEMPORARY OII<E 20

5 fied as: industrial, commercial, governmental, residential, and vacant land. If a single statement could summarize the intensive utilization of this area it would be that along the banks of the Calumet River and its immediate environs lies "the largest concentration of industry in the world." This statement is evidenced somewhat in Map 1, one of the two maps graphically illustrating the results of fieldwork and related research. In Table 1, are listed the forty-nine contiguous river and lake sites of the study area. The listing commences with site #1, owned by the United States Steel Corporation and located on the west bank of the Calumet River at the original mouth, and then continues southward around Lake Calumet. The listing of locations proceeds northward, along the east bank to the last site, Site #49, occupied by the Transoceanic Terminal Corporation on the vacated site of Youn gstown Sheet and Tube Company. The map and the table not only help to verify the statement made but also gives evidence of the variety of the economic activities present in the study area. The comprehensive port facilities and the diverse industrial and economic activities along the Calumet River and at Lake Calumet result in a unique land use pattern. This pattern is not exclusively the result of local economic functions, nor even the Calumet's area's economic activities; it is the result of these as well as the economic forces and activities of the study area's hinterland- the dynamic midwest region of the United States. For within the hinterland of Chicago is the most productive area of large sca le commercial agriculture in the world, an area which produces large surpluses for export and which consequently is a tremendous market for manufactured goods and other merchandise directly imported from, or using materials imported from, many parts of the world. In addition, the hinterland of Chicago includes the western portion of the American manufacturing and urban belt, extending from the eastern seaboard to the Midwest and containing the preponderant population and manufacturing capacity, as well as the purchasing power, of the United States! To illustrate the unique pattern of land use in the study area, a simplified classification of land use and a land use map have been devised (Map 2). A general summary of the utilization of all sites appears in Table 2. The nature of the commercial activities at forty-seven of the study area's forty-nine sites (96%) - to be economically feasible-are partly dependent upon their waterway location which basically provides an access to inexpensive water transportation and/ or water. This is best evidenced by the areal size and number of: A) storage facilities which number 20 in the study area (40%), B) shipbuilding and repair which number 7 (14%), C) primary metal industries which number 6 (12%). The latter also uses large quantities of water as does the Commonwealth Edison Company (Site # 10). The desirability of a waterfront location is substantiated for example by Garvey Grain Incorporated and Continental Grain Company, both have two sites and Material Service Corporation, which has three sites along the river. All of these are bulk storage facilities : Land Use Patterns Along the Calumet River The original mouth of the Calumet River was dominated until recently by the primary metal industries and consisted of holdings of the United States Steel Corporation and the recently 21

6 THE CALUM::T RIVER AND LAKE CALUMET 1961 Gum '0 - o o 22

7 TABLE 1 Contiguous River and Lake Sites and Their General Economic Activities Site Occupant Activity 1 United States Steel Corp Integrated steel producing plant 2 United States Army Corp of Engineers.... Government engineers (river survey and maintenance) 3 NALCO Chemical Co Manufacture of oil and chemical products 4 Garvey Grain Co Grain elevator terminal 5 Calumet Shipyard and Dry Dock Co..... Designers and builders of welded floating equipment and ship repair 6 University Atlas Cement Co Cement shipping terminal 7 Dundee Cement Co Cement shipping terminal 8 John Mohr and Sons Steel fabricators and erectors 9 Peoples Gas Light and Coke Co Gas utility 10 Commonwealth Edison Co Electric utility, generating station 11 Rail -To-Transfer Corp For the transfer of coal from rail to vessels 12 ADM Grain elevator terminal 13 Peterl in Co Terminal warehouse 14 Material Service Corp Bulk material transferred, stored, and transported 15 Fitzsimons and Connel Engineers and contractors for river and harbor Dredge and Dock Co. improvements 16 General Mills Cereal producer 17 Wisconsin Steel Works Integrated steel producing plant 18 Interlake Iron Corp Merchant iron producing plant 19 Great Lakes Carbon Corp Calcining plant for petroleum coke 20 Continental Grain Co. Grain elevator terminal 21 Rogers Terminal and Shipping Corp.... Terminal warehouse and stevedoring 22 Cargill Grain Co Grain elevator terminal East shore of Lake Calumet, from Turning Basin No. 5 North to 116th Street "Temporary Dike" 23 International Great Lakes Shipping Corp.. Transfer and storage of bulk materials 24 Bulk Terminals Co Transfer and storage of bulk liquids 25 EmEsCo Industries Transfer and storage of bulk materials South shore of Lake Calumet, from 116th St. "Temporary Dike" to Turning Basin 26 Continental Grain Co Grain elevator terminal 27 Indiana Grain Corp Grain elevator terminal 28 North Pier Terminal Terminal warehouse 29 Calumet Harbor Terminal Inc Bulk and general merchandise East bank of the Calumet River, north from Turning Basin No.5 to Lake Michigan 30 Material Service Corp... Bulk material transferred, stored, and transported 31 Allied Chemical Corp Inactive manufacture of plastic and coa l chemicals 32 Ford Motor Co Automobile assemblage plant 33 Bird & Son, Inc Producer of tar paper and roofing products 34 General Chemical Co General chemical producer, acids for industry and agricu lture 35 Republic Steel Corp Integrated steel producing plant 36 Valley Mould and Iron Corp Manufactures ingot molds and stools for molds 37 Wes tern Navigation Corp Transfer and storage of bulk and general freight 38 Marbl ehead Lime Co Produces chemical lime for construction 39 Chi cago Block Co Manufactures concrete products for construction 40 Am erican Ship Building Co Ship building and repair 23

8 TABLE 1 (concluded) Site Occupant Activity 41 Marquette Cement Shipping Co Cement manufacture and shipping 42 Garvey Grain, Inc Grain elevator terminal 43 Federal Marine Terminal Inc..... Storage and terminal for general merchandise 44 Great Lakes Towing Co Tugboat towing 45 E. G. Todt Co Engineers and machi nists 46 Ribben and Co Boiler works, fabricators, and erectors 47 Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co River and harbor improvements, dredging 48 Material Service Corp Bulk materials transferred, stored, and transported 49 Transoceanic Terminal Corp Bulk and general merchandise terminal TABLE 2 Summary of Site Utilization Land Use Category Industrial Commercial Government... Total Calumet River Lake Calumet Sites Sites 0/0 No. % No Total All Sites In Study Area % No

9 vacated Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company. Whereas the steel industry dominated the land use at the original mouth of the Calumet River, there is a diversity of uses immediately adjacent to that area. The U. S. Steel Corporation has the largest (574 acres)8 and longest site in the study area as well as ideal frontage on both Lake Michigan and the Calumet River. This site constitutes the best location in the study area. Vesse ls entering and leaving U. S. Steel's river slip are spared the costly bridge delays that hamper the " down river" locations and thwart both water and land tra ffie. The smallest land holding along the Calumet River is Site #2, occupied by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. This site is located within the confines of the U. S. Steel Corporation site. The second largest co ncentration of primary industries along the river includes land held by Wisconsin Steel Works (Site # 17), Interlake Iron Corporation (Site # 18), the Valley Mould and Iron Corporation (S ite #36) and Republic Steel Corporation (Site # 35). Th e heavy industry sites located excl usively along the Calumet River, possess greater area and depth landward from the stra nd than the commercial or light industrial sites. The large industrial sites are also more regular in shape, with the exception of the Valley Mould and Iron Corporation which has an irregular shape along the rive r. One of the most unique activities along the Calumet Ri ver is the Rail-to Water Transfer Corporation (Site # 11 ) at 100th Street where a bulk-handling operation transfers coal, coke, ferroman ga nese and pelletized iron ore from rai lroad gondola cars into ships via a series of co nnected conveyor belts. Some stru ctural steel is also received at the facilities. The total annual tonnage handled at this facility exceeds 10,000,000 tons. Coal is shipped primarily to Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway ports. The longest straight section of the Calumet River is between 111th Street and 122nd Street. Ships and barges berth directly at the river bank to accommodate the industrial and commercial activities that flank this section. Until recently the most sinuous portion of the Calumet River was between 122nd Street and Turning Basin #5. Under the program to make Lake Calumet more accessible, this section is being straightened. The activities on the site along this section are of such a nature that large ships do not need to dock here. West of Torrence Avenue the land is vacant to Turning Basin #5 and there are no slips along the channel. All of the river slips are north of 111th Street. An ocean or lake vessel of average length and draft can turn around at fourteen different points on the six mile long Calumet River and almost anywhere in the improved section of Lake Calumet. There is a total of eleven slips and three turning basins along the river. Of the eleven slips, eight serve industrial sites, and three serve commercial sites. However, the commercial concerns utilize a greater number of vesse ls.' Cargoes to and from industrial plants and mills are generally bulky material (primarily iron ore and coal, also other minerals and grains) whereas the commercial concerns receive and send more diverse cargoes classified as high-value general freight. The greatest concentration of slips is between 100th Street and 105th Street and are at storage and metal fabricating sites. Three of the six slips in this area are the property of the American Shipbuilding Company, primarily for ship repair and maintenance activities. General Mills (Site #16) has access to the river only via a slip which it shares with the Fitz Simons and Connel Dredge Company (Site #15). 25

10 All of the buildings located directly on the river or lake edge are either for storage or ship repair. The buildings covering the greatest amount of land area are located on heavy industry sites but the structures with the greatest height and total storage area are grain elevators found on the storage sites. In general, commerce and industry form only a narrow fringe of activity along the Calumet River. The immediate environs are residential south from Lake Michigan to 110th Street on the west bank. On the east bank, south to 113th Street, the land use behind the river sites is a combination of residential and vacant land. The only vacant land along the river is a small segment between 95th Street and 97th Street on the east bank of the river and a longer stretch on the west bank between the Torrance Avenue bridge and Turning Basin # 5. Land Use Patterns Along Lake Calumet The developed southern and eastern section of Lake Calumet contains seven commercial sites. The original facilities were constructed by the Chicago Regional Port District, at no public expense, and are well suited for their important role at this interior lake port. The largest structures here are the two huge identical grain elevators that are now leased to Continental Grain Company (Site # 26) and the Indiana Grain Corporation (Site # 27). Each elevator has a 6,500,000 bushel capacity and maintains modern loading and unloading equipment. The slip between can accommodate the largest lake vessels, 700 to 720 feet in length. Site # 27 is also the berth of a municipal fireboat. Other harbor facilities built at that time on the southern 125 acre improved section of Lake Calumet include : three storage sheds (Sites # 28 and # 29) and one " back-up" warehouse (Site # 28). Two sheds have a storage area of 72,000 square feet each and the third shed has a larger capacity of 172,000 square feet. These fireproof buildings are especially designed for convenient storage of goods that are placed on wooden pallets which are moved and stacked by fork lift trucks. At the rear of the three sheds are the truck docks and a space for the temporary stacking of containers. The " backup" warehouse has a truck dock in the front and a railway dock in the rear. There are sixteen miles of railway tracks for the efficient dispatching and distribution of freight. Twenty-three railways serve the general area. A fire station, dedicated in 1964 protects the Lake Calumet complex as well as the immediate environs. To expedite the movement of goods and materials a forty foot wide, paved wharf is located between the sheds and the docked ships. Two railway tracks extend along the side of the 5,700 foot sheet pile bulkhead lined dock. This and the dock on the west side of Turning Basin #5, are the only general cargo docks in the originally improved section of Lake Calumet. A second, post 1957 building phase at Lake Calumet began in 1961 and continues intermittently to date. Along the land-filled east shore are five new commercial sites, results of this second building phase. They include: International Great Lakes Shipping Company (Site #23), Bulk Terminals Company (Site #24), EmEsCo Industries (Site # 25) on Slip No.2 (the newest of Lake Calumet's two slips), and located between the latter two are the Shell Petroleum storage and liquid mixing facilities and the Welded Steel Tube Company's fabricating plant sites whose locational factors include a close proximity to a waterway but not direct frontage. (Since neither of these has direct lake frontage they will not be considered in this paper.) At Lake Calumet is the largest floating crane in operation on the Great 26

11 Lakes; the 110 ton crane, Wm. J. Mc Dillon. There are also twenty and thirty ton mobile cranes on the shore to augment the loading and unloading of cargoes. EmEsCo Industries (Site #25) has two gantry cranes to expedite the handling of cargoes. The cargoes handled at Lake Calumet are diverse. The North Pier Terminal (Site # 28) advertises that it stores and distributes products from abaca to zythum. Diversity best describes not only the cargoes of the study area but all of Port of Chicago. Chicago is involved in direct trade with more than fifty-six countries due to the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in Lake Calumet accommodated a total of 220 foreign ships in Domestic ships numbered forty-five. In 1968, Lake Calumet accommodated 555 foreign and twenty domestic vessels, reflecting the feasibility of current III Harold M. Mayer, The Port 01 Chicago and the 51. Lawrence Seaway, (The University of Chicago Press, 1957). )21 John B. Appleton, The Iron and Steel Industry 01 the Calumet District : A study in Economic Geography, University of Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences, Vol. XIII, No.2, Urbana : (University of Illinois, June, )' 1 U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, The Port 01 Chicago, II/inois, (The United States Government Printing Office, 1940), p. 2. ). ) Open hopper barges, covered dry cargo barges and liquid cargo (tank) barges have been frequent ly obriver improvements and the attractiveness of the new faci Ii ties. About seventy-five per cent of the surrounding environs of Lake Calumet are vacant except for the Pullman industrial district on the west side of Lake Calumet. This industrial area, outside of the study area, functions independently of Lake Calumet or its facilities. U. S. Alternate 30 (Calumet Expressway) separates the two areas. The Lake Calumet segment of the Port of Chicago is an integral part of the interior American port with the greatest potential. The combination of good natural features ; a local industrial and commercial concentration; accessibility to railways, highways and the Great LakeS-Mi ssissippi River complex, and a location near the world's most productive hinterland assures Lake Calumet of continued success. served plying this section of the Ill inois Waterway system. t5) Far Southeast Development Area, (Department 01 the Port of Chicago), p. 3 and p. 7. t61 " Port Activities," Annual Report , (Department of the Port of Chicago, Navy Pier), p. 9. t71 Mayer, op. cil., p t 8 1 Pending legislat ive approval, U. S. Stee l may expand eastward by filling in 194 acres in Lake Michigan. t'l Based on personal field observations and from information in the daily list of vessels i n port supplied by the Chicago Daily Calumet. 27