15. The port in winter
From mid-November to April, when the thaws began, the Port of Chicago lay idle in terms of shipping. Despite being shut down in the winter months, in 1871 Chicago was the busiest port in the United States, measured in ship arrivals. The port serviced more ships than New York, San Francisco, Baltimore, Charleston, Philadelphia and Mobile, combined. During the winter months more than two thousand sailors spent their days of unemployment in the city. Their ships, tied up in the river and boat basins, connected to each other by gangplanks. Some crewmen lived aboard them during the winter months, avoiding the expense of rooming houses and hotels in the city.
The port reached its heyday in the 1870s and 1880s. As ships plying the lakes for commercial trade grew larger, captains preferred to use the Calumet River as their destination. Improvements to the Calumet by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1880s led to increased development in the region, and grain silos, lumber yards, coal bunkers, and steel mills emerged. Chicago, by then focused on the railroads, found its port gradually reduced, though passenger traffic on the lakes continued to arrive in the city. Plans to expand the port’s facilities in the early 20th century were abandoned. In 1959 the St. Lawrence Seaway opened, and for the following decade, the Navy Pier supported another shipping boom. Since then commercial shipping at the Port of Chicago declined.