LAND USE BORDERING THE CALUMET RIVER AND

LAKE CALUMET IN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

William D . Curran*

and

Martin W. Reinemann

'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 i ty at DeKalb, Ill inois .

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.

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

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 water 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

18

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 cause 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

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-

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20

THE CALUMET RIVER

AND

LAKE CALUMET

LAND USE

1961 IRe., i,.d 1965)

(Revised 1970)

SCALE "IS,OOO

""TUn MIU:S , I O ~ 1.0

_wm_/tl D. C .. rran-

uc

LAKE CALU MET

E 10'III.SI

LAKE MICHIGAN

LEGEND

~ iNQUSTRIAl

~ COMMERCIAL

• GOVERNMENT

D RESIDENTIAL

[] VACANT

TEMPORARY OII<E

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 Youngstown 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

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22

THE CALUM::T RIVER

AND

LAKE CALUMET

1961

Gum '0

-­o o

Site

TABLE 1

Contiguous River and Lake Sites and Their General Economic Activities

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 termi nal 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 materia ls 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 Ind iana 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 chemica l 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 Western 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 American Ship Building Co . .... . ... . ... Ship building and repair

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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, d redging 48 Material Service Corp .............. . .. Bulk materials transferred, stored, and transported 49 Transoceanic Terminal Corp . .. ......... Bulk and general merchand ise termina l

Land Use Category

Industrial .. .... . . ... . ... . Commercial ........... . . . Government .............

Total ... .. . .. ............

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TABLE 2

Summary of Site Utilization

Calumet River Lake Calumet Sites Sites

0/0 No. % No.

47.6 20 0.0 0 50.0 21 100.0 7

2.4 1 0.0 0

100.0 42 100.0 7

Total All Sites In Study Area % No.

40.8 20 57.1 28

2.0 1

99.9 49

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. Thi s site is located within the confines of the U. S. Steel Corporation site. The second largest concentration 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 exclusively along the Calumet River, possess greater area and depth land­ward from the strand 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 river.

One of the most unique activities along the Calumet River is the Rail-to­Water 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 connected 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 pri-

marily 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) .

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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

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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

Lakes; the 110 ton crane, Wm . J. Mc­Dillon. 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 1959. Lake Calumet accommodated a total of 220 foreign ships in 1964. Domestic ships numbered forty-five. In 1968, Lake Calumet accommodated 555 for­eign and twenty domestic vessels, reflecting the feasibility of current

II I 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 : (Univers ity of Illinois, June, 19251.

)' 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 ob-

river improvements and the attractive­ness of the new faci Ii ties.

About seventy-five per cent of the surroundi ng 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-Mississippi 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 Act ivities," Annual Report . . . 1960, (Depart­ment of the Port of Chicago, Navy Pier), p. 9.

t71 Mayer, op. cil. , p. 121.

t81 Pending legis lat ive approva l, 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 l ist of vessels in port supplied by the Chicago Daily Calumet.

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