Is Cleveland Midwest or East

[btownboss4]

Originally Posted by WRnative

OK, you've shot your credibility, as apparently you've never heard of the Welland Canal, which has been around since 1829, or the St. Lawrence Seaway in more recent decades. The Welland Canal bypassing Niagara Falls is why the Port of Cleveland can have scheduled freight service between Cleveland and Europe. Anybody halfway well informed about Cleveland knows about the Welland Canal and the St. Lawrence Seaway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellan..._Welland_Canal

My guess, and it's a guess, is that Rochester didn't develop as a lake port because of a paucity of anything to ship into or out of Rochester economically. Similarly, Toronto on Lake Ontario has a good commercial port, but its commercial tonnage is much smaller even today than Cleveland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toront...ort_of_Toronto

Cleveland and Buffalo developed as ports because of their direct proximity to the Erie Canal, which offered economical transport to and from NYC. Initially, agricultural goods shipped by canal boats up the Ohio and Erie Canal through Cleveland to Buffalo and the Erie Canal comprised much of the cargo shipped from Cleveland. Agricultural goods and other goods produced in western NY likely were shipped directly on the Erie Canal.

<<By 1849, Ohio produced more corn than any other state, and ranked second in wheat production.>>

Agriculture and Farming in Ohio - Ohio History Central

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_and_Erie_Canal

Cleveland further became a manufacturing center, partly because coal could be sent by train from the south while iron ore was delivered by lake freighters.

Iron ore and grain are major commodities shipped to and from Cleveland these days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_Cleveland#Cargo

I wonder if Port of Cleveland statistics include iron ore delivered up the Cuyahoga River by giant lake freighters directly to the ArcelorMittal steel mill, as opposed to iron ore pellets that do go through Port of Cleveland facilities for transshipment.

ArcelorMittal Cleveland makes steel, here's how they do it | cleveland.com

https://clevelandmagazine.com/cleade...s-to-cleveland

Within the City of Cleveland, there is a major salt mine under Lake Erie that also uses the Port of Cleveland to ship product.

Exploring the Cleveland Salt Mine | News | ideastream

Detroit also isn't on a Great Lake, but has major port facilities nearby on the Rouge River.

For the formative years of these cities 1800-1950 Niagara Falls and the St Lawrence River was a geographic barriers and bottlenecks canal or no, so everything was shipped down to the MS River Via Chicago or down to NYC via Buffalo. That changed with the completion of the St Lawrence Seaway. The Welland Canal wasn't suitably for freighters until 1937 so for that long ocean going and Great Lakes ships were separate vessels

Rochester was never a port because it was a milltown on the Genesee that happened to be near Lake Ontario, there is 200ft of water falls between Rochester and the Lake, the Port of Rochester was south of Downtown towards the Erie Canal