Ore dock
Encyclopedia
An ore dock is a large structure used for loading ore
(typically from railway cars or ore jennies) onto ships which then carry the ore to steelworks or to transshipment points. Most known ore docks were constructed near iron
mines on the upper Great Lakes
and served the lower Great Lakes. Ore docks still in existence are typically about 60 feet (18.3 m) wide, 80 feet (24.4 m) high, and vary from 900 feet (274.3 m) to 2400 feet (731.5 m) in length. They are commonly constructed from wood, steel, reinforced concrete
, or combinations of these materials.
They are commonly used for loading bulk ore carriers with high mass, low value ore, such as iron ore, in raw or taconite
form.
.
The docks storage bins or pockets typically are wider at the top than the bottom, and lead to movable steel chutes. These chutes project out over the water at a slight angle from the sides of the docks. The hinged chutes, which when lowered allow ore to drop into ships from the pockets, are located at twelve-foot intervals over the length of the dock.
This spacing is not coincidental, as the docks and the lakers
they could load evolved together, and laker hatch spacing is typically 12, or 24 feet (7.3 m) on center.
ports of Minnesota
, Wisconsin
and especially Michigan
. Rich iron ore deposits were first discovered in the Upper Peninsula
in the 1840s and remain a significant source of wealth for the state. By the 1890s, Michigan was the largest supplier of iron ore in the United States. Railroads would haul ore from the mines to great ore docks on the Great Lakes
in places such as Escanaba
and Marquette
, where it would be loaded on ore freighters and transported to the rest of the country.
Iron ore was first discovered in Michigan's Upper Peninsula on September 19, 1844, by William A. Burt, who was then employed to lead a party engaged in surveying the Upper Peninsula on behalf of the United States government. Variations in the readings of magnetic compasses employed suggested that something was disturbing the local magnetic fields, and, on investigation of part of the Marquette Iron Range
, ore was found as close to the surface as just below the sod.
Development of this find was ongoing throughout the 1840s and early 1850s. The initial focus was on producing iron locally, as shipping was difficult. Early shipping attempts using mule
teams, plank road
s, and barrels loaded as deck cargo on schooner
s required transshipment after portaging
the St. Marys River rapids, and costs proved prohibitive. However, as the mines continued to develop and railways were put in place, the volume of ore increased, far outstripping the local production capacity. In 1855, the Soo Locks
opened, and the volume of ore shipped increased, with the first year seeing 1447 tons on various brigs and schooners. The first dock specifically for the ore trade was built in Marquette in 1857. It was flat rather than elevated, and the vessels were loaded with wheelbarrows.
By 1860, the volume of ore shipped through the Soo Locks had increased to 114,401 tons, only to fall again to 49,909 tons in 1861 after the American Civil War
broke out. However, by 1862, an additional wooden dock had been constructed at Marquette, this time featuring an elevated railway trestle for ore jennies to discharge ore into pockets. Schooners now started to feature regularly spaced hatch covers, speeding up loading. However steamers of the day were not well adapted for bulk cargoes such as iron ore. They did not have hatches through their decks. Instead they had gangways through the sides. So ore shipments were loaded via wheelbarrows through the gangways. The docks had provisions for this by having a flat surface on one side and moorings directly under the pockets for schooners to receive the ore directly, while steamers moored on the opposite side of the dock. However, unloading was still a laborious hand-powered affair.
During this period, the iron ore trade was dwarfed by the grain and lumber trade. For example, grain received at the port of Buffalo, New York
, alone in 1866 were about 1,500,000 tons, and the lumber received at Chicago, Illinois, were about 400,000 tons, whereas the received amount of iron ore at all Lake Erie
ports amounted to only 278,976 gross tons. Marquette remained the only port on Lake Superior
that shipped iron ore until 1876.
After the war, advancement was rapid. The Cleveland Iron Mining Company
's dock was 30 feet (9.1 m) above the lake level and was originally built with 29 schooner pockets and 6 steam boat pockets but, by 1872, had been extended an additional 350 feet (106.7 m), providing 54 additional pockets. During the 1873 season, the total tonnage of iron ore shipped from the port of Marquette was 1,175,000 tons.
As additional ranges (the Gogebic, Menominee East, and Menominee West) began to be developed, with the acceleration of the US as an industrial power, other (primarily Lake Superior) ports also got ore docks. For example, Ashland, Wisconsin
, the natural port for the Gogebic Range, had three docks by 1916, the first built by the Milwaukee, Lake Shore and Western Railway in 1884-1885. It was 1400 feet (426.7 m) long, with 234 pockets, and four tracks on the dock, and could hold 25,000 tons of ore.
The natural port for the Menominee East range was Escanaba, Michigan
; the first docks there were built in 1865.
dock, one of the docks at Marquette, Michigan
, recently loaded its 400 millionth ton of ore after 90 years of service. (The other dock, built later by Merritt-Chapman & Scott
for the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railway
(DSS&A) was taken out of service in 1971.The largest dock of the type in the world exist in Superior, Wisconsin, as part of BNSF's Allouez Taconite Facility. The docks are still off limits, because the conveyor belt that feeds the present day BNSF dock runs through the facility. ) Ore docks are mentioned in popular culture, at least one high school athletic team, the Ashland, Wisconsin
Oredockers takes their name from them, and they have been mentioned in song.
Ore
An ore is a type of rock that contains minerals with important elements including metals. The ores are extracted through mining; these are then refined to extract the valuable element....
(typically from railway cars or ore jennies) onto ships which then carry the ore to steelworks or to transshipment points. Most known ore docks were constructed near iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
mines on the upper Great Lakes
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
and served the lower Great Lakes. Ore docks still in existence are typically about 60 feet (18.3 m) wide, 80 feet (24.4 m) high, and vary from 900 feet (274.3 m) to 2400 feet (731.5 m) in length. They are commonly constructed from wood, steel, reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete is concrete in which reinforcement bars , reinforcement grids, plates or fibers have been incorporated to strengthen the concrete in tension. It was invented by French gardener Joseph Monier in 1849 and patented in 1867. The term Ferro Concrete refers only to concrete that is...
, or combinations of these materials.
They are commonly used for loading bulk ore carriers with high mass, low value ore, such as iron ore, in raw or taconite
Taconite
Taconite is a variety of iron formation, an iron-bearing sedimentary rock, in which the iron minerals are interlayered with quartz, chert, or carbonate...
form.
Construction
The typical construction of an ore dock is a long high structure, with a railway track or tracks along the top with a number of "pockets" into which ore is unloaded from cars, typically by gravity. Each pocket has a chute that can be lowered to discharge the ore into the hold of a ship berthed alongside. The use of pockets and chutes allows loading the dock asynchronously of its discharge into the freighterCargo ship
A cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship or vessel that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year; they handle the bulk of international trade...
.
The docks storage bins or pockets typically are wider at the top than the bottom, and lead to movable steel chutes. These chutes project out over the water at a slight angle from the sides of the docks. The hinged chutes, which when lowered allow ore to drop into ships from the pockets, are located at twelve-foot intervals over the length of the dock.
This spacing is not coincidental, as the docks and the lakers
Lake freighter
Lake freighters, or Lakers, are bulk carrier vessels that ply the Great Lakes. The best known was the , the most recent and largest major vessel to be wrecked on the Lakes. These vessels are traditionally called boats, although classified as ships. In the mid-20th century, 300 lakers worked the...
they could load evolved together, and laker hatch spacing is typically 12, or 24 feet (7.3 m) on center.
History
Ore docks were a common sight in many Lake SuperiorLake Superior
Lake Superior is the largest of the five traditionally-demarcated Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded to the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Minnesota, and to the south by the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Michigan. It is the largest freshwater lake in the...
ports of Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
and especially Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
. Rich iron ore deposits were first discovered in the Upper Peninsula
Upper Peninsula of Michigan
The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is the northern of the two major land masses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan. It is commonly referred to as the Upper Peninsula, the U.P., or Upper Michigan. It is also known as the land "above the Bridge" linking the two peninsulas. The peninsula is bounded...
in the 1840s and remain a significant source of wealth for the state. By the 1890s, Michigan was the largest supplier of iron ore in the United States. Railroads would haul ore from the mines to great ore docks on the Great Lakes
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
in places such as Escanaba
Escanaba, Michigan
Escanaba is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan, located in the banana belt on the state's Upper Peninsula. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 13,140, making it the third-largest city in the Upper Peninsula after Marquette and Sault Ste. Marie...
and Marquette
Marquette, Michigan
Marquette is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Marquette County. The population was 21,355 at the 2010 census, making it the most populated city of the Upper Peninsula. Marquette is a major port on Lake Superior, primarily for shipping iron ore and is the home of Northern...
, where it would be loaded on ore freighters and transported to the rest of the country.
Iron ore was first discovered in Michigan's Upper Peninsula on September 19, 1844, by William A. Burt, who was then employed to lead a party engaged in surveying the Upper Peninsula on behalf of the United States government. Variations in the readings of magnetic compasses employed suggested that something was disturbing the local magnetic fields, and, on investigation of part of the Marquette Iron Range
Marquette Iron Range
The Marquette Iron Range is a deposit of iron ore located in Marquette County, Michigan, largely in and around the towns of Ishpeming and Negaunee. It is a smaller counterpart of Minnesota's Mesabi Range. The iron ore of the Marquette Range has been mined continuously from 1847 until the present...
, ore was found as close to the surface as just below the sod.
Development of this find was ongoing throughout the 1840s and early 1850s. The initial focus was on producing iron locally, as shipping was difficult. Early shipping attempts using mule
Mule
A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. Horses and donkeys are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes. Of the two F1 hybrids between these two species, a mule is easier to obtain than a hinny...
teams, plank road
Plank road
A plank road or puncheon is a dirt path or road covered with a series of planks, similar to the wooden sidewalks one would see in a Western movie. Plank roads were very popular in Ontario, the U.S. Northeast and U.S. Midwest in the first half of the 19th century...
s, and barrels loaded as deck cargo on schooner
Schooner
A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....
s required transshipment after portaging
Portage
Portage or portaging refers to the practice of carrying watercraft or cargo over land to avoid river obstacles, or between two bodies of water. A place where this carrying occurs is also called a portage; a person doing the carrying is called a porter.The English word portage is derived from the...
the St. Marys River rapids, and costs proved prohibitive. However, as the mines continued to develop and railways were put in place, the volume of ore increased, far outstripping the local production capacity. In 1855, the Soo Locks
Soo Locks
The Soo Locks are a set of parallel locks which enable ships to travel between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes. They are located on the St. Marys River between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, between the Upper Peninsula of the US state of Michigan and the Canadian province of Ontario...
opened, and the volume of ore shipped increased, with the first year seeing 1447 tons on various brigs and schooners. The first dock specifically for the ore trade was built in Marquette in 1857. It was flat rather than elevated, and the vessels were loaded with wheelbarrows.
By 1860, the volume of ore shipped through the Soo Locks had increased to 114,401 tons, only to fall again to 49,909 tons in 1861 after the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
broke out. However, by 1862, an additional wooden dock had been constructed at Marquette, this time featuring an elevated railway trestle for ore jennies to discharge ore into pockets. Schooners now started to feature regularly spaced hatch covers, speeding up loading. However steamers of the day were not well adapted for bulk cargoes such as iron ore. They did not have hatches through their decks. Instead they had gangways through the sides. So ore shipments were loaded via wheelbarrows through the gangways. The docks had provisions for this by having a flat surface on one side and moorings directly under the pockets for schooners to receive the ore directly, while steamers moored on the opposite side of the dock. However, unloading was still a laborious hand-powered affair.
During this period, the iron ore trade was dwarfed by the grain and lumber trade. For example, grain received at the port of Buffalo, New York
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
, alone in 1866 were about 1,500,000 tons, and the lumber received at Chicago, Illinois, were about 400,000 tons, whereas the received amount of iron ore at all Lake Erie
Lake Erie
Lake Erie is the fourth largest lake of the five Great Lakes in North America, and the tenth largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has the shortest average water residence time. It is bounded on the north by the...
ports amounted to only 278,976 gross tons. Marquette remained the only port on Lake Superior
Lake Superior
Lake Superior is the largest of the five traditionally-demarcated Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded to the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Minnesota, and to the south by the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Michigan. It is the largest freshwater lake in the...
that shipped iron ore until 1876.
After the war, advancement was rapid. The Cleveland Iron Mining Company
Cleveland-Cliffs
Cliffs Natural Resources , formerly Cleveland-Cliffs, is a Cleveland, Ohio business firm that specializes in the mining and beneficiation of iron ore and the mining of coal. The firm is an independent company whose shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The firm has stated that it had...
's dock was 30 feet (9.1 m) above the lake level and was originally built with 29 schooner pockets and 6 steam boat pockets but, by 1872, had been extended an additional 350 feet (106.7 m), providing 54 additional pockets. During the 1873 season, the total tonnage of iron ore shipped from the port of Marquette was 1,175,000 tons.
As additional ranges (the Gogebic, Menominee East, and Menominee West) began to be developed, with the acceleration of the US as an industrial power, other (primarily Lake Superior) ports also got ore docks. For example, Ashland, Wisconsin
Ashland, Wisconsin
Ashland is a city in Ashland and Bayfield counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The city is a port on Lake Superior, near the head of Chequamegon Bay. The population was 8,695 at the 2010 census....
, the natural port for the Gogebic Range, had three docks by 1916, the first built by the Milwaukee, Lake Shore and Western Railway in 1884-1885. It was 1400 feet (426.7 m) long, with 234 pockets, and four tracks on the dock, and could hold 25,000 tons of ore.
The natural port for the Menominee East range was Escanaba, Michigan
Escanaba, Michigan
Escanaba is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan, located in the banana belt on the state's Upper Peninsula. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 13,140, making it the third-largest city in the Upper Peninsula after Marquette and Sault Ste. Marie...
; the first docks there were built in 1865.
Today
Many docks have been torn down or abandoned, but the Cleveland-CliffsCleveland-Cliffs
Cliffs Natural Resources , formerly Cleveland-Cliffs, is a Cleveland, Ohio business firm that specializes in the mining and beneficiation of iron ore and the mining of coal. The firm is an independent company whose shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The firm has stated that it had...
dock, one of the docks at Marquette, Michigan
Marquette, Michigan
Marquette is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Marquette County. The population was 21,355 at the 2010 census, making it the most populated city of the Upper Peninsula. Marquette is a major port on Lake Superior, primarily for shipping iron ore and is the home of Northern...
, recently loaded its 400 millionth ton of ore after 90 years of service. (The other dock, built later by Merritt-Chapman & Scott
Merritt-Chapman & Scott
Merritt-Chapman & Scott, nicknamed "The Black Horse of the Sea", was a noted marine salvage and construction firm of the United States, with worldwide operations. The chief predecessor company was founded in the 1860s by Israel Merritt, but a large number of other firms were merged in over the...
for the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railway
Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railway
The Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railway was an American railroad serving the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the Lake Superior shoreline of Wisconsin. It provided service from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and St. Ignace, Michigan, westward through Marquette, Michigan to Superior, Wisconsin,...
(DSS&A) was taken out of service in 1971.The largest dock of the type in the world exist in Superior, Wisconsin, as part of BNSF's Allouez Taconite Facility. The docks are still off limits, because the conveyor belt that feeds the present day BNSF dock runs through the facility. ) Ore docks are mentioned in popular culture, at least one high school athletic team, the Ashland, Wisconsin
Ashland, Wisconsin
Ashland is a city in Ashland and Bayfield counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The city is a port on Lake Superior, near the head of Chequamegon Bay. The population was 8,695 at the 2010 census....
Oredockers takes their name from them, and they have been mentioned in song.
See also
- Lake freighterLake freighterLake freighters, or Lakers, are bulk carrier vessels that ply the Great Lakes. The best known was the , the most recent and largest major vessel to be wrecked on the Lakes. These vessels are traditionally called boats, although classified as ships. In the mid-20th century, 300 lakers worked the...
- general bulk cargo ship whose evolution paralleled that of the docks. - HulettHulettThe Hulett automatic ore unloader was invented by George Hulett of Ohio in the late 19th century; he received a patent for his invention in 1898. The first working machine was built the following year at Conneaut Harbor in Conneaut, Ohio...
a device used to remove ore from the freighter's holds at the other end of the journey