3?7 
 
 4 
 
 CINCINNATI’S WATER TERMINALS 
 
 A Paper read bef ore the Literary Club, by Albert Bettinger, 
 January 18, 1913, and printed by order of the Club 
 with the Author's Consent.. 
 
 No single factor has played so great a part in the world’s prog- 
 ress as that of transportation. Each improvement in the meth- 
 ods of transportation marked a forward step for mankind. The 
 sail boat, the steamboat, the railroad, each introduced an era in 
 the world’s history. In our own country our earliest develop- 
 ment was along the coast line and on the shores of our Great 
 Lakes £nd rivers because these then offered the easiest means of 
 transportation. 
 
 To develop the interior sections, canals were built to connect 
 natural waterways, such as the Erie canal, which opened a con- 
 tinuous highway from tidewater to the great Northwest, and the 
 Ohio Canal system which established connection between the 
 Great Lakes and the Ohio and Mississippi river systems. Canals 
 were even projected and in part constructed to connect the head- 
 waters of the Potomac with those of the Allegheny, and the head- 
 waters of the James River with those of the Kanawha. 
 
 Along these highways were laid the foundations of our coun- 
 try’s future greatness. So completely did they constitute the main 
 avenues of trade that many of the earlier railroads were built as 
 feeders to them or as connecting links between them, rather than 
 as independent lines of transportation. 
 
 In Ohio, for instance, while there was a difference in the valu- 
 ation of property in favor of counties bordering on the canals as 
 against those lying on the interior, this difference grew enormously 
 after the opening of the canals to traffic between 1827 and 1833, 
 and has been maintained to the present day. 
 
 But the railroad proved to be an efficient transportation ma- 
 chine, and in some respects superior to transportation by water. 
 It could traverse the country everywhere, and was not subject to 
 conditions of drouth or flood or ice, and therefore developed rap- 
 idly and in corresponding degree the country’s commerce also 
 grew. Our greatest railway mileage was put down in the two de- 
 cades between 1870 and 1890. Indeed, the 70,000 miles con- 
 structed in the last of these two decades may be set down as the 
 greatest economic achievement in the history of the world. 
 
 Subsequent improvement as a transportation agency was ac- 
 complished more by an increase of carrying capacity through im- 
 
 d.44?03 
 
proved roadbed, enlargement of cars and of terminal facilities on 
 existing track than by construction of new mileage. 
 
 In our country, where, by reason of its great extent, commerce 
 must be carried on over long distances, transportation has become 
 our greatest single industry. The gigantic proportions of this 
 industry become impressive when we understand that the gross 
 receipts of the railroads of the country exceed by many millions 
 the total revenues (except from the sale of bonds) of our Fed- 
 eral Government, our State and Territorial Governments and of 
 all our cities, towns and minor civil divisions. In other words 
 our population pays several millions of dollars more per annum 
 to the railroads for transportation than it does for the maintenance 
 of every governmental function carried on in the United States. 
 
 As the cost of transportation adds nothing to the intrinsic 
 value of the article transported, but merely changes its location, 
 it becomes as a tax upon that article. Thus a barrel of flour car- 
 ried from Minneapolis to Pittsburgh at a freight rate of $1.00, 
 increases to that extent the cost of that article to the consumer, 
 while the barrel of flour is precisely the same as it was before. 
 Periodically we pay our tax bills with a. varying sense of their 
 burdensomeness, but it never occurs to us that every moment of 
 our existence we pay a tax vastly greater for transportation. 
 
 Most of us read and hear discussions concerning regulation 
 of freight rates with the complacent indifference of one who is 
 unaffected thereby, and yet none is exempt from the payment of 
 freight bills. Directly the freight bills are paid by the shipper or 
 receiver of freight, but these are collected back from the ulti- 
 mate consumer in the increased selling price of the commodity. 
 In this form the freight bills come to us in the price of every- 
 thing we eat and drink and wear. All things we do, the houses 
 we live in, the pavement we walk on, the books we read, the 
 things we use at work or play all have been enhanced in cost to 
 us by reason of a transportation charge, not one, but more often 
 many charges. A discerning glance over your breakfast table 
 brings home the fact that every article upon it, no less than the 
 table itself and the chairs around it, have been charged both in 
 their component parts and as a whole with costs of transporta- 
 tion. 
 
 Nothing that we use or consume comes to us unburdened with 
 the cost of transportation except air and sunshine, and to a limited 
 extent, water. This gives us some idea of the transcendent im- 
 portance to us all of the question of transportation and of the 
 benefit to be derived from a reduction of its cost. 
 
 2 
 
Creative Effect of Improved Transportation Facilities 
 
 But my plea is not for the direct advantage to the consumer 
 of reduced cost of transportation, great as this may be, but for 
 the creative effect of cheap transportation. A difference in 
 freight rates determines the location of industries. It opens and 
 closes markets. Transportation facilities, according to their kind, 
 make and unmake cities. And while it were desirable that no sec- 
 tion of our country should go forward at the expense of another, 
 yet the whole battle of life is inevitably one of the survival of the* 
 fittest, whether between individuals or sections or nations, there- 
 fore the locality which provides itself with the best transportation 
 facilities, all other conditions being equal, will progress most. 
 Thus, in 1820, Philadelphia with its immediate environment ex- 
 ceeded in population the cities of New York and Brooklyn, and 
 was generally conceded to be and remain the principal city of 
 the East. 
 
 The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 gave to New York a 
 direct route to the West with a marvelous effect on her prosperity. 
 In 1840 her population exceeded that of Philadelphia by 100,000 
 and her manufactured product rose from $7,000,000.00 in 1830 
 to $95,000,000.00 in 1840, and although Philadelphia recovered 
 herself somewhat by her subsequent ample railroad facilities, yet 
 New York never Tost the headway she had gained. A writer of 
 Philadelphia history says : 
 
 “Be the cause whatever it may, the fact stands out 
 prominently that, from the completion of the Erie 
 Canal, New York became what Philadelphia pre- 
 viously had been — the Commercial Emporium of the 
 C T nited States.” 
 
 That the people of New York share this view is shown in the 
 enlargement of the same Canal, now in progress (nearly 100 years 
 later) at an expenditure of $100,000,000.00. 
 
 Cincinnati furnishes another example. By 1850 Cincinnati 
 had reached a population of 114,438, and was, indeed, 
 
 “The Queen of the West 
 In her garlands drest, 
 
 On the banks of the beautiful river.” 
 
 On the banks of that river affording 4,000 miles of inland nav- 
 igation, reaching not only to the sea, but into the Northwest, in 
 the center of a great Valley of boundless natural resources, settled 
 by a sturdy population, the Mecca of Eastern Migration, she 
 reigned supreme in the territory west of the Alleghenies. 
 
 About 1870 Chicago and even Cleveland became her rivals, 
 
 3 
 
largely through transportation facilities afforded by the railroads, 
 then beginning their real development. The West was naturally 
 tributary to Chicago and St. Louis, but the South belonged to 
 Cincinnati, yet she allowed these cities to project their railroads 
 into the South and wrest from her much of the commerce of 
 that Section. 
 
 Had Cincinnati, following the example of New York, held on 
 to the lead which she had gained through her river traffic, by 
 compassing improvements of the river channel and at the samfe 
 time kept pace with her rivals in railroad building, in short, had 
 she maintained the advantage which she had gained by her su- 
 perior means of transportation, there is little doubt that she would 
 to-day be the Commercial Emporium of the West in fact as well 
 as in song. Heroic in deed was the effort of Ferguson to reclaim 
 the lost opportunity by building the Southern railroad. 
 
 In 1872 the seven Ohio Valley States joined in a memorial to 
 Congress for the improvement of the Ohio River, which, though 
 unproductive of decisive action on the part of Congress, dis- 
 closes a thorough appreciation of its impotrance and speaks with 
 the eloquence of sincerity and the wisdom of prophecy. Let me 
 quote a few passages : 
 
 “The progress of the past fifty years in the de- 
 velopment of the Nation only foreshadows what will 
 be its magnitude in the next fifty to come, when all 
 the progressive forces of population and capital that 
 have been in the past so steadily gathering power 
 shall come fully into action. 
 
 “For what a teeming population, for what a store- 
 house of food, for what a workshop of mechanical 
 productions the American statesmen of to-day are 
 called upon to prepare for in the future, it needs 
 only to analyze the statistics of the past fifty years 
 and study the geological reports of the States to 
 foresee. 
 
 “To urge upon you to make one of these prepara- 
 tions for the Nation’s future, to meet one of those 
 national issues which is already rising, to beseech of 
 you to take up the improvement of the internal water 
 transportation of the countrv on a scale commensur- 
 ate with the wants of the Nation yet to be, and in 
 the spirit that led you to give millions to build the 
 iron pathways across the continent, is the object of 
 our memorial. 
 
 “From the sea unto the sea spread the domains 
 of these United States; from ocean to ocean dwell 
 its people. Through its eastern and western 
 gates pour the peoples of the earth, finding each, 
 
 4 
 
if they so chose, their own climate, the same, or 
 similar, products of their own soil and familiar oc- 
 cupations. He who holds the nations of the earth 
 in his hand seems to have formed this land for the 
 home of a people with whom the grandest fruc- 
 tication of Christian civilization should develop. 
 
 In the heart of this great domain, this wonderfully 
 productive territory, this storehouse of a world’s 
 wealth, spreads, even from the mountains unto' the 
 mountains, that rim in with their ribs of iron and 
 of silver, of coal and gold, the whole heart of the 
 Nation, mighty rivers, giving more than fifteen 
 thousand miles of national water highways, await- 
 ing the skill of the engineer to bear a greater com- 
 merce upon their waters than the oceans that bound 
 our shores. 
 
 “To the development of a Nation so powerful 
 as this now is, and as its domains and its resources 
 foretell it will become, the brain of the most sa- 
 gacious rulers could not have devised a more com- 
 plete and convenient system of artificial internal 
 water communication with the whole interior, than 
 Nature presents for man’s perfecting hand; one 
 better designed to favor the interchange of the pro- 
 ducts of all sections, or to carry those products to 
 the markets of the world. In its absence the states- 
 man might sigh in vain for its creation, and the 
 people deplore, without relief, its want. In the 
 face of its existence when its great use now, and 
 greater importance in years to come, is beyond ar- 
 gument, should there be any hesitancy on the part 
 of the rulers of this Nation to spend millions, if 
 required, in rendering this internal system of navi- 
 gation what it should be to furnish cheap transpor- 
 tation the country now asks, and will hereafter de- 
 mand, when if thev had it not no sum would seem 
 disproportionate to the benefits to be derived from 
 its existence? 
 
 “Those benefits are not to be questioned, and the 
 legislation that will balance the cost of the improve- 
 ments now against the benefits, present and to come, 
 will fail to rank high in the history of this Nation, 
 or in the estimation of men.” 
 
 Glorious and inspiring as this address undoubtedly was, and 
 indeed still is, it failed of its purpose for lack of that popular 
 support which is essential to the success of great movements, and 
 therefore it became waste paper in the pigeonhole of the appropri- 
 ate committee. 
 
 The “Nation yet to be,” the “teeming population,” the “store- 
 house of food,” the “workshop of mechanical productions,” the 
 
“demand for cheap transportation/’ which these memorialists so 
 vividly portrayed and so accurately foretold, and for which they 
 vainly besought Congress to prepare by a timely, permanent im- 
 provement of our inland river system, are all present realities 
 after the lapse of less than half a century. 
 
 Railroad expansion and improvement during* this period was 
 indeed great, but the growth of our commerce was greater. 
 
 In 1906 and 7 the railroads staggered under the weight of 
 the traffic that demanded transportation. Our commerce had 
 during the preceding decade increased 118 per cent., while the 
 railway mileage over which it was to be carried had increased 
 but 21 per cent. It was then estimated by James J. Hill, one of 
 the great railroad authorities of the present day, that merely to 
 accommodate existing traffic there would be required 75,000 miles 
 of new track, costing with terminals, $5,500,000,000, or an out- 
 lay of $1,100,000,000 per year if the work were spread over five 
 years. His conclusion was that 
 
 “In the long run, transportation adopts the line of 
 least resistance to gravity. The rivers mark the di- 
 rection. Just as the entire drainage of the Central 
 West is gatheied into the Mississippi, and passes 
 by it to the Gulf, so that portion of its commerce 
 which consists of articles of large bulk and weight 
 will move naturally in this direction when the choked 
 outlet becomes an open passage. The burden which 
 the railroads alone cannot carry will be shared by 
 the waterways.” 
 
 About the same time the Interstate Commerce Commission is- 
 sued a statement of like tenor couched in the most serious and 
 portentous language. 
 
 Elihu Root, then Secretary of State, in a public address de- 
 scribed the same situation in these words : 
 
 “We have come to a point where the railroads of 
 the country are unable to perform that function 
 which is necessary to continued progress in the in- 
 crease of our national wealth. Conditions are such 
 that there is no human possibility that railroads can 
 keep pace with the necessities of our natural pro- 
 duction for the transportation of our products, and 
 the one avenue that is open for us to keep up our 
 progress is the avenue of water transportation.” 
 
 The National Rivers and Harbors Congress, an association 
 whose membership extends to every State of the Union, was 
 formed for the purpose of impressing the same proposition upon 
 the public mind and in that way upon the Congress of the United 
 States. 
 
 6 
 
The Ohio Valley Improvement Association, formed in this 
 City in 1895, whose membership is made up of citizens from cities 
 and towns on the Ohio river labors in the same field, but limits 
 its efforts to the improvement of the Ohio River and its tribu- 
 taries. 
 
 So after the lapse of forty years since the Ohio Valley Mem- 
 orialists published their prayers and prophecies, Congress has 
 taken up seriously the question of improving our inland water- 
 ways ; the Ohio River by the construction of fifty-four movable 
 dams which will insure a permanent minimum depth of nine feet, 
 at an estimated cost of $63,000,000. About 30 per cent, of the 
 work is now completed, and the work is being pushed as rapidly 
 by the United States Engineers as the annual appropriations of 
 Congress will allow, and which are promised to be made in such 
 amount as will admit of completion in 1923. 
 
 A permanent channel of nine feet in the Ohio River may 
 therefore be said to be now fairly in sight. Besides the Alle- 
 gheny and the Monongohela, it receives six tributaries from the 
 South and one from the North, all improved for a greater or less 
 distance to a depth of six feet. The Mississippi from Cairo to 
 New Orleans is safe even now for a minimum depth of eight 
 feet, and from Cairo to the mouth of the Missouri River is benig 
 improved to a like depth, and from thence to St. Paul improvement 
 to a depth of six feet is in progress. 
 
 The Missouri River to Kansas City is also under improvement. 
 Thus a splendid dependable inland river system of nearly 10,000 
 miles will be available. 
 
 The question is frequently and properly asked : Will these 
 waterway improvements restore to the rivers the traffic once car- 
 ried by them, in the face of railroad competition? 
 
 The answer to this question requires consideration of the 
 causes of the decline of river traffic. 
 
 One of the most effective methods employed by the railroads 
 for the suppression of water traffic was the reduction of rates be- 
 tween competitive points below the actual cost of transportation, 
 and when the competitor was driven out, to restore the living 
 tariff, recouping itself in the meantime by charging a higher rate 
 on the traffic not affected by the water route. But a corrective 
 for this evil has been provided by an amendment of Section 4 of 
 the Interstate Commerce Law passed June 25, 1910, providing that 
 when a railroad reduces its rate in competition with a water route, 
 the same shall not again be raised unless after a hearing by the 
 Interstate Commerce Commission it is shown that the proposed 
 
 7 
 
increase rests upon changed conditions other than the elimination 
 of water transportation. 
 
 Another serious impediment to the maintenance and develop- 
 ment of river traffic was the refusal of the railroads to pro- 
 rate with water lines on through freight, or to issue or honor 
 through bills of lading for part water and part rail shipments. 
 For instance, coal brought to Cincinnati by water from West 
 Virginia or Pennsylvania cannot be reshipped here by rail ex- 
 cept at local rates, which consume the advantage gained by the 
 cheap water transportation, while coal shipped here by rail will 
 be forwarded by another road upon a proportionate division be- 
 tween the two roads of a through rate. 
 
 This latter objection has been met by Section 2 of the Pana- 
 ma Canal Act passed August 24, 1912, amending Section 6 of the 
 Interstate Commerce Act, which authorizes the commission “to 
 establish through routes and maximum joint rates between and 
 over rail and water lines and to determine all the terms and con- 
 ditions under which such lines shall be operated in the handling 
 of the traffic embraced.” Also, “to establish physical connection 
 between the lines of the rail carrier and the dock of the water 
 carrier, by directing the railcarrier to make suitable connection 
 between its line and a track or tracks which have been con- 
 structed from the dock to the limits of its right-of-way, or by 
 directing either or both the rail or water carrier individually or 
 in connection with one another, to construct and connect with 
 the lines of the rail carrier, a spur track or tracks to the dock. 
 * * * The provisions of the Act extend to cases where the dock 
 is owned by other parties than the carrier involved.” 
 
 It is needless to say that this Act when brought fully into 
 exercise, will remove one of the most serious obstacles to a re- 
 vival of the river traffic. 
 
 There remains one other condition to be established for the 
 full development of river transportation, and that done, there is 
 no reason to doubt that commerce on the Ohio will be vastly 
 greater than ever in its history, stimulating the commercial and 
 industrial life of the whole Ohio Valley to an extent now scarcely 
 dreamed of, and that is the matter of . 
 
 Terminals 
 
 About ten years ago the railroads entered upon a general im- 
 provement and extension of their terminals as one means of 
 preparing them better to meet the ever-growing demand for trans- 
 portation. During that time many millions of dollars have been 
 
 8 
 
expended in all parts of the country at great freight centers. A 
 marvelous work of this character by the Pennsylvania Railroad 
 is approaching completion in New York and Brooklyn. The New 
 York Central system has similar improvements in progress at a 
 cost of over a hundred millions of dollars and yet Mr. Brown, its 
 president, recently declared “that these no more than symbolize 
 what his system must do, and within a short time, if it is ade- 
 quately to handle the volume of traffic which our increasing agri- 
 cultural and industrial productions will demand. ” 
 
 Every railroad entering Cincinnati has, within the past few 
 years, added vast acres to its terminal trackage and has in the 
 same ratio extended its facilities for handling freight originating 
 or terminating here. 
 
 What has been found so indispensable to the railroads is no 
 less essential to water transport. A navigable channel is not a 
 transportation line without adequate terminals, and, to render the 
 waterway a real integral part of the transportation system of the 
 country, there must above all things be harmonious co-operation 
 between water lines and rail lines at all points of contact. There 
 must be physical connection between them equipped with suitable 
 machinery for the easy and cheap transfer of freight from one to 
 the other. 
 
 Unless facilities of this character are provided Cincinnati can 
 hope to derive only small advantage from the completion of the 
 Ohio River improvement. 
 
 The National Waterways Commission, in its preliminary re- 
 port of 1910, and again in its final report published in March, 
 1912, stated: 
 
 “It is absolutely essential for the growth of water 
 transportation that every port, whether located on 
 the seacoast or on some inland waterway, should 
 have adequate public terminals, at which all boat 
 lines can find accommodation at reasonable rates. 
 Inasmuch as the indifference of communities to 
 their responsibility in this matter largely nullifies 
 the benefits of expenditures by the Federal Govern- 
 ment for channel improvements, the Commission 
 emphasizes the recommendation made in its prelim- 
 inary report that further improvements in rivers 
 and harbors be not made unless sufficient assurance 
 is given that proper wharves, terminals and other 
 necessary adjuncts to navigation shall be furnished 
 by municipal or private enterprise, and that the 
 charges for their use shall be reasonable.” 
 
 Mr. Herbert Knox Smith, Commissioner of Corporations, in 
 
 9 
 
a recent exhaustive report on water terminals, states, as one 
 salient fact existing in the harbor tonditions of the country, 
 
 “that there is a striking lack of co-operation with the 
 Federal Government on the part of localities bene- 
 fited by channel improvement. This is in marked 
 contrast to those continental countries whose water- 
 ways have been most highly developed.” 
 
 These, and similar utterances by high official authority, have 
 produced in Congress a well-settled conviction that if the Na- 
 tional Government provides the channels, States or municipalities 
 should provide the terminals. 
 
 When the provisions for the Ohio River, contained in the 
 Rivers and Harbors bill of 1910, were under discussion, several 
 members were insistant upon the insertion of a condition that the 
 municipalities along the Ohio River should give assurance in some 
 form that suitable terminals will be provided, and only on the 
 statement of the Chairman of that Committee of his belief that 
 such provision would be made in due season were the objecting 
 members satisfied. In some instances, appropriations for river 
 improvement were conditioned on the municipalities specially in- 
 terested furnishing public wharves, and the condition having 
 failed the appropriations never took effect. 
 
 In the River and Harbor enactment of 1912, the Chief of 
 Engineers was directed to make report to Congress of what is 
 being done by municipalities along rivers, now under Federal im- 
 provement, toward providing public wharves, docks and other 
 terminal facilities. It will be seen therefore that the subject 
 of water terminals for Cincinnati imperatively demands our 
 attention. 
 
 Cincinnati’s Terminals 
 
 What is our present situation in this respect, and what can be 
 done to meet this demand? Cincinnati has a river frontage of 
 over twenty miles. There are perhaps fifteen or twenty private 
 terminals for the elevation of coal, sand, brick, stone, forest pro- 
 ducts, etc., but we have only 1,000 feet of public landing and 
 these are situated between Broadway and Main Streets. This 
 tract was dedicated to public use as a common in 1789 and has- 
 ever since been used as a public landing. 
 
 Several years ago the City Council granted to a railroad com- 
 pany a right-of-way diagonally across the landing for an elevated 
 railroad structure which was designed to effect a connection with 
 certain terminal property lying west of the landing. The Su- 
 preme Court, however, held that this gift was invalid for want of 
 
 10 
 
right in the city to give away that which it held in trust for the 
 public. The railroad company then procured the passage of an 
 act by the Legislature authorizing railroad companies to condemn 
 such rights-of-way across public landings when they deem it 
 necessary, and after having effected an agreement with the City 
 Council as to the manner, terms and conditions of such elevated 
 structure. The City Council, still impelled by the same generous 
 impulse which prompted its former gift, entered into such an 
 agreement with the railroad and the latter at once instituted pro- 
 ceedings in the courts for such condemnation. It is contended by 
 the city’s counsel that the proposed structure would seriously in- 
 terfere with, if not prevent the use of the landing when the Ohio 
 River improvement shall be completed, and that the railroad can 
 accomplish its legitimate purpose of connection with its terminal 
 by several admittedly practical routes without crossing the public 
 landing, and for that reason its occupancy by the railroad is not 
 in fact necessary. This, and questions involving the validity of the 
 legislative act, as well as the action of Council, are pending in the 
 Supreme Court, and I will not now discuss the merits of this con- 
 troversy further than to say that if the railroad company shall 
 finally prevail, and shall occupy the landing as proposed, the 
 commercial interests of Cincinnati will suffer an irreparable loss, 
 for there is no* other portion of our river front to which access is 
 not already barred by railroad occupation, nor is there any part 
 of the river front located so conveniently to the commerical dis- 
 tricts of Cincinnati. On the other hand, if the contention made 
 in the interest of the general public is sustained, then both the 
 railroad and the river terminals will be saved to the commercial 
 interests of our city. 
 
 Let us assume, however, that the final outcome of the contro- 
 versy will be favorable to the public interest. Then the public 
 landing can be made to serve the purposes of a modern water 
 terminal for the handling of local package or merchandise freight, 
 and perhaps to some extent of a reshipping place if a belt railroad 
 can be brought in connection with it. 
 
 Docks and elevating machinery will be installed to carry 
 freight from boat to warehouses, or receiving stations at the top 
 of the landing, and vice versa , where the local deliveries will re- 
 ceive and deliver their freight. Tedious trucking by horse power 
 up and down the steep hillside, which costs as much per ton as it 
 does to bring it all the way from Maysville, a distance of sixty 
 miles, will be a thing of the past. 
 
 But at what point shall we be able to establish physical con- 
 
 II 
 
nection between the river and all the railroads entering the city, 
 so as to facilitate shipment of our local products, such as ma- 
 chinery, boilers, engines, structural iron, automobiles, buggies and 
 wagons, soap, millwork, furniture,- pianos, paper and numerous 
 other local products? 
 
 How can we attract through shipments for the South and West 
 and through the Panama Canal to the Pacific Coast, from that 
 great industrial and agricultural section lying between the lines 
 drawn from Cincinnati to Chicago and from Cincinnati to Buf- 
 falo ? 
 
 Where can we create a manufacturing district which shall 
 have the river and rail at their very doors? In short, where can 
 we build a large, commodious inland harbor from which the large 
 railroad systems shall radiate, so that we may take full advantage 
 of our new position? Let me show you where: 
 
 Between the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton and the Balti- 
 more & Ohio Southwestern Railroads, running from West Sixth 
 Street to Cummins ville, lies a basin thirty feet below the general 
 surface, almost ready for the influx of water to be converted into 
 a lake. At my request Mr. M. D. Burke, an engineer of great 
 ability and distinction, has made an examination of this territory 
 and prepared a tentative plan, which is too long for incorporation 
 in this paper in detail, but of which the following is a brief 
 outline : 
 
 He would throw a dam across the basin about 400 feet north 
 from Gest Street from the B. & O. S. W. Railroad on the east to 
 the C. H. & D. Railroad on the west. This dam is to have a spill- 
 way about 400 feet in width to hold the water in the pool above 
 it at a minimum level of about sixty feet above low water in the 
 Ohio River. The present flood stage marks almost exactly the 
 proposed level of the basin. In the dam above Gest Street there 
 is to be a hoist or lock, termed a “water balance,” an ingenous 
 contrivance which at a single operation will transfer two boats, 
 one up and one down. One of its chief features is that it wastes 
 little or no water in its lockage, a matter of considerable im- 
 portance when the locks are continually in motion. The embank- 
 ment of the B. & O. S. W. Railroad is to be riveted, so as to hold 
 water. Southwardly, from the dam to the Ohio River, a channel 
 250 feet wide and with its bottom ten feet below low water in the 
 river, is to be excavated and to be confined between walls at least 
 sixty-two feet above low water, and the spaces in the bottom land 
 upon either side of the channel would afford desirable sites for 
 wharves, quays and warehouses. 
 
 12 
 
In the northern part of the basin, at Cumminsville, extensive 
 areas are submerged at a stage of sixty feet in the Ohio, to a 
 depth of four feet or more, which can be converted into valuable 
 factory sites, having rail and water fronts, by filling with the 
 material from excavations that will be required to widen the 
 banks of Millcreek in this vicinity. 
 
 The upper end of the basin would be about forty-eight feet 
 below the present level of the Miami & Erie Canal, from which 
 the water could be taken and the difference in elevation be over- 
 come by a flight of three or four locks of dimensions suitable to 
 the present canal. By small improvement of Millcreek the ship- 
 ping facilities can be extended to that industrial section round- 
 about Proctor & Gamble’s. 
 
 At South Cumminsville, where the West Fork joins Millcreek, 
 there is room for more extensive developments. The valley is 
 wider, the stream is larger, and the basin is wider. The water 
 from the basin will extend up the West Fork for a long distance, 
 and, if the property interests are such as to justify the expense, 
 a swing bridge, crossing the C. H. & D. Railroad tracks and 
 wharves, may be constructed west of those tracks which will ac- 
 commodate manufactories of great magnitude. 
 
 The boats to be admitted to this harbor will be barges towed 
 from place to place by deep draft propeller boats. In these barges 
 the freight is to be carried to its destination by towboats of river 
 freight lines, or may be transferred to other barges or even to 
 river packets. Railroad tracks will be extended out into this 
 basin from the main tracks upon docks, equipped with electric 
 hoisting machinery, and it is asserted that the necessary current 
 can be generated by the water power to be gained at the upper 
 canal and lower locks. At or near the upper end of the basin ex- 
 tensive coal terminals can be installed to which coal barges may 
 be brought from the river and reloaded into cars for reship- 
 ment by rail, thereby Cincinnati would become the great coal dis- 
 tributing point in the country. Here facilities would also be 
 afforded to supply the local market, thus saving a long haul from 
 the present river terminals. Many local industries too would be 
 supplied with coal directly from barges. Precisely this character 
 of service has for years been rendered to the cities of Covington 
 and Newport, by utilizing the narrow and tortuous Licking River. 
 
 The land to be acquired for this harbor, with but slight ex- 
 ception, is of less value than any land round about Cincinnati, 
 and most of it is unfit for any use without the expenditure of 
 enormous sums for filling. There are no valuable improvements 
 
 13 
 
throughout the whole extent of this basin, so that the cost of ac- 
 quisition would be comparatively small. 
 
 Perhaps the greatest difficulty in the whole undertaking will 
 be found in making a passageway under the railroads to the river 
 at the lower end of the harbor. Quoting from Mr. Burke’s re- 
 port : 
 
 “ Owing to the great vibration in the height of water in the 
 Ohio River, and the absolute necessity for keeping a passage clear 
 in each direction, it is probable that swing bridges, instead of the 
 modern bascule form of bridge would be used. The swing bridge 
 requires a center pier, and these piers would divide the traffic into 
 two channels, neither of which should be less than 100 feet in 
 width, this requirement fixing the width of the excavation and 
 walled channel at not less than 250 feet. At low water, or any 
 stage of twenty feet or less in the river, barges could be taken by 
 tugs, or two boats through this channel without opening any of 
 these bridges, as the bottom chords of all of them could be placed 
 at such an elevation as would leave the space below the level of 
 fifty-five feet above low water unobstructed.” 
 
 Mr. Burke has no hesitancy in saying that an ample supply of 
 water will at all times be available to keep the basin filled with 
 sufficient overflow to prevent stagnation. 
 
 Attention has, of course, been given to the question of sewage, 
 and he finds that a sewage disposal plant, producing a non-putres- 
 cible and inoffensive effluent, would have to be placed in Lick Run 
 valley west of where it is crossed by Harrison Avenue. He sug- 
 gests an intercepting sewer that will conduct the effluents from a 
 number of sewers emptying into Millcreek to a sewage disposal 
 plant at West Fork The sewage coming from the vast territory 
 east of Millcreek lie leaves for disposal by the plans now being 
 studied by the city authorities, none of which contemplate, of 
 course, the retention of the present open sewer in Millcreek. 
 
 The Eighth Street, Liberty Street and Harrison Avenue via- 
 ducts now cross this basin, and another, the Hopple Street via- 
 duct, is under construction, and still another, the Queen City 
 Avenue viaduct, is proposed. Possibly another may be required 
 at Gest Street. 
 
 These will be sufficient for some time to come. As those 
 viaducts were built to eliminate grade crossings, there is no pro- 
 priety in longer maintaining the streets under them, as is how the 
 case with Eighth Street and Harrison Avenue. 
 
 No estimate of the cost of the undertaking has yet been made, 
 but it is not believed to be excessive, or in any sense prohibitive 
 
 14 
 
when compared with the magnitude of the project and the vast 
 benefit to be derived therefrom. The city should build this ter- 
 minal from the proceeds of bonds to be issued therefor, the in- 
 terest and amortization of the same to be paid out of the earnings 
 of the enterprise, and when the bonds shall have been redeemed, 
 then the terminal charges should be such only as will be required 
 for maintenance and necessary improvement ; and to be, of course, 
 from the beginning, open to all railroads and water lines on equal 
 terms. 
 
 It is not to be doubted that the railroads entering Cincinnati 
 will eagerly seek a terminal of such utility and convenience con- 
 ducted on such terms of equality. 
 
 The city is obligated under the Canal Abandonment Act to 
 form at its own cost a suitable connection between the present 
 canal at Mitchell Avenue and the Ohio River, whenever that 
 canal is improved to a depth of nine feet. Such improvement 
 may be delayed temporarily but not permanently. If the State of 
 Ohio will not build the canal the fifteen counties through which it 
 passes can well afford to build it on their own account, and doubt- 
 less will when the question is brought before them in its real 
 significance. Notice their importance when compared with the 
 remaining seventy-three counties, as shown by the Census of 
 1900: 
 
 These fifteen counties constitute of the eighty-eight counties 
 in the State, 17 per cent. 
 
 The value of real estate and improvements in these counties 
 is 34 per cent. 
 
 Of capital invested in manufacturing they employ 31 per cent. 
 
 Of manufactured products they produce 37 per cent. 
 
 Of employes they engage 37 per cent. 
 
 Of wages they pay 35 per cent. 
 
 In manufacturing Cincinnati stands first, Dayton third and 
 Toledo fourth. In population Cincinnati stands second, Toledo 
 third and Dayton fourth. The canal passes through all these 
 •cities. 
 
 This industrial life was created by the Miami and Erie Canal. 
 
 Its enlargement, to a depth of ten feet, has been declared to be 
 practicable and at reasonable cost by Government and other emi- 
 nent engineers. The upper fifty miles is to form a part of the 
 proposed Toledo, Fort Wayne and Chicago canal, connecting 
 Lake Erie with Lake Michigan, and as to which Government 
 •engineers are at this very moment formulating their report. Why 
 should the city not embrace the present opportunity to make such 
 
 15 
 
3 0112 072423947 
 
 > 
 
 connection in conjunction with the establishment of a modern rail 
 and water terminal, which will ppen for it a new era of prosper- 
 ous development? New York has voted a bond issue of $20,- 
 000,000.00 for terminals to meet the requirements of its enlarged 
 Erie Canal. 
 
 The city of New Orleans has by its recently constructed ter- 
 minals, its belt railroad and docks and splendid administration, 
 turned the tide of prosperity in her favor. 
 
 At Houston, Texas, public rail and water terminals are now 
 being extended, and a 25-foot channel to the harbor of Galveston, 
 a distance of fifty miles, is under construction, one-half the cost 
 of which, two and a half millions, is being paid by a taxing dis- 
 trict composed of Houston and the immediate environment. 
 Seventeen railroads are seeking this inland harbor and are on 
 their own account constructing extensive private terminals. Jack- 
 sonville, Florida, has just voted a large bond issue for the con- 
 struction of large municipal docks. 
 
 Manchester brought herself back into a state of prosperity, 
 after a long period of decay, by the establishment of extensive 
 rail and water terminals and their connection with the sea through 
 a ship canal only twenty-three miles in length. Frankfort, a truly 
 inland city, lying on the diminutive Main, expended in 1886 
 $2,000,000 to equip a harbor not only for the co-ordination of rail 
 and water transport, but for the creation of industries on its 
 shores, and so productive of good results was this undertaking 
 that she has just completed a vast extension of her harbor at a 
 cost of $17,000,000 for the accommodation of her rapidly grow- 
 ing commerce. She followed the plan of acquiring vast tracts of 
 land, and, after the creation of her harbor and terminals, selling 
 much of the land for industrial enterprises and applying the pro- 
 ceeds of these sales toward the cost of the improvement. 
 
 Could a more complete concurrence of favorable conditions 
 for such an enterprise be anywhere found than we have at hand 
 here in Cincinnati? By a single stroke we would convert an un- 
 sightly disease-breeding and hitherto useless waste into a practical 
 and profitable union between our great rail and waterway sys- 
 tems ; we would create a great industrial district, giving employ- 
 ment to thousands of men and adding millions to adjacent land 
 values; and would, for a second time in our history, reap untold 
 advantage from our greatest natural resource — the Ohio River. 
 
 16