Friday, September 13, 2019

East Breakwall Construction – Sept. 1963

This set of photos and caption might be of interest to anyone who ever enjoyed a pleasant stroll on the East Side Pier.

The photos ran in the Lorain Journal on September 19, 1963 and provided a progress report on the construction of the new East Breakwater, which was part of a major harbor improvement program at that time.

Here's a newspaper account of the awarding of the contract.

From the News Messenger, January 25, 1963
And here's a clipping from the Sun and Erie County Independent of May 30, 1963 about the shipping of the steel to be used in the construction of the east breakwater.
By the mid-1970s, the Diked Disposal area to the east of the break wall was being proposed.

A portion of a 1974 map prepared by U. S. Army Engineer

A November 1974 U. S. Army Engineer proposal called for "the construction and operation of a 58-acre diked disposal facility to receive polluted sediments dredged from Lorain Harbor."

"After filling and a subsequent period of stabilization, the site may be used for parkland or other recreational purposes," noted the report.

Anyway, since its construction in the early 1960s, the East Breakwater and its surrounding area have undergone more even improvements, and would be unrecognizable to someone who hadn't seen it in a long time.

Here's a current aerial shot of the "Mile Long Pier" and Diked Disposal area courtesy of Google Maps.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My aunt and uncle lived around the corner on Colorado Ave during that time and I spent a lot of my early youth in that area. I can still remember hearing the pile driver pounding the steel sides of the soon to be pier into the lake bed all day long. I often wondered what year that was trying to figure out how old I was at the time. Thanks for the date,Dan now I know. Todd

-Alan D Hopewell said...

For years, it was called, "The New Pier".