Yesterday in a comment left on the blog, my old Masson School classmate Mike Kozlowski mentioned that his father worked at American Ship Building. So this article from the May 18, 1963 Journal of sixty years ago today might be of interest to him.
It's a pretty well-written history of American Ship Building, featured as part of the "Perspective" series of articles presented by the newspaper. It covers the beginnings of the company in 1899 and proceeds through the decades, identifying the company's accomplishments as well as notable ships.
A nice sidebar by Ralph E. Neumeyer looks specifically at the history shipbuilding on the banks of the Black River in Lorain. It notes, "A rough count would show about 300 wooden steam and sailing vessels built prior to the American Shipbuilding Co. arrival in 1899, and a similar number of ships of all types in the next 60 years.
A U. S. Great Lakes registry chart reveals that at the time of the 1963 article, 85 vessels of the Great Lakes ore fleet were built in the Lorain Yards
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I devoted several blog posts to the Roger Blough.
VERY interesting article.
ReplyDeleteThough, it's strange to me that it doesn't mention how shipbuilding could be considered the "grand-daddy" of other Lorain heavy industries. Railroads, steel mills, Tube, and all the infrastructure that goes with them: much of that developed thru the needs of the shipyards.
What a wonderful time in a busy, bustling and somewhat sooty city. Lorain is a ghostly remnant now. Cleaner, perhaps, with endless so-called improvements as it transitions into another bedroom community for Cleveland, for those who didn't buy soon enough in Avon Lake. What in interesting, lively place it used to be. People didn't go into Cleveland much because they didn't have to-- everything was there in Lorain. They often quote Faulkner, "the past is never dead. It's not even past," but Lorain's past is on life-support, kept alive by your blog, Dan, and little else. The Lorain of old has been reduced to echoes now, that are dying away.
ReplyDeleteLorain reminds me of the Fairview Park/North Olmsted/Rocky River area.In some of their neighborhoods the houses look similar to Lorain's houses.The layout.The design.The closeness of the houses to each other.But whereas Fairview Park/Rocky River still has people that actually own their own homes Lorain has almost exclusively rental properties.And that's because all the jobs are gone.And with renters therein lies the problem.Fairview Park/Rocky River residents take care of their lawns and pick up what little litter there is as there is none.Lorain's rental clientele just watch the litter blowing around from dumpsters on the streets and don't even mow their own lawns on a regular basis if they even rent a house.Lorain was at its peak around 1970.It's been a ride down the slummy super slip n slide ever since.
ReplyDeleteDan,
ReplyDeleteThanks for running this, anything having to do with AmShip is of interest! Dad went to work there just about a year after this was published and we moved from Snow Rd. in Parma to Long Avenue in Lorain. With the exception of a couple years in the early 70s, Dad was there till the yard went under.
My grandfather, Frank Ferraro, was a Chief of Police at American Shipbuilding. He died in 1952 when I was 2 years old, but my grandmother proudly displayed a photograph of him in his uniform.
ReplyDeleteMy father, who piloted Great Lakes ore carriers, later sold steel castings to AmShip and negotiated the contracts with George Steinbrenner, Jr. before he became "The Boss" of the Yankees.
I remember hearing the shipyard whistle when I was little.It must've been when everyone got off of work because it was later in the day.I think.Or maybe it was lunch time?Who knows except the ghosts of Lorain?Anyway,it was cool to hear.I wonder if anyone has it now or if old Steinbrenner had it destroyed out of spite when he closed up the yard?
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