ASHTABULA, Ohio – The distance between the Port of Ashtabula on Lake Erie and the Wellsville Intermodal Facility along the Ohio River is approximately 100 miles – a direct drive on state Route 11 that takes less than two hours.
Spread throughout this corridor are businesses and industries that may not realize the entire world is on their doorstep, this slice of northeastern Ohio carrying the potential of becoming a major international commercial center, anchored by two natural landmarks.
The lake-to-river axis holds promise that could propel development across this portion of the country, officials say, as the region presents opportunity by leveraging legacy assets to attract new business and industry. The lake-to-river concept is not new. But it came to fruition in the form of Lake to River Economic Development last year, a new district under the JobsOhio network that covers Ashtabula, Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties.
“There are few places within a 100-mile stretch that can access any port in the world and international commerce anywhere,” says Mark Winchell, executive director of the Ashtabula Port Authority. “Where else do you have access to the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Port of New Orleans?”
Northeast Ohio to the World
On a cold December morning, two large Great Lakes freighters sit in drydock at Ashtabula Harbor for repairs, preparing for what is likely to be a busy season once the weather breaks. The previous afternoon, the diesel-powered freighter American Courage pulled into port, unloading a sizeable cargo of limestone.
The Port of Ashtabula, with its deep-water harbor off Lake Erie along the Ashtabula River, has the capability of loading and unloading large capacity ships carrying products from all over the world. From Ashtabula – or nearby Conneaut – freighters can easily transport products or materials up the St. Lawrence Seaway, transfer their cargo to ocean-going vessels, and then ship directly to the major ports of Europe.
Moreover, barges moving down the Ohio River and connecting with the Mississippi can feed commercial activity to the Gulf of Mexico and on to South America, or through the Panama Canal to Pacific markets.
“Our deep-water ports are absolutely critical,” Winchell says. “They bring in products. They bring in aggregate, ore. Leveraging these assets enhances our ability to advance development.”
The Port of Ashtabula handles as much as 10 million tons of cargo per year, most of it inbound. Salt, limestone for aggregate, and other products arrive in the harbor weekly.
Coal is no longer a major commodity that’s shipped to or from the region.
Yet the port was constructed to accommodate approximately 80 million tons annually, a reflection of the decline in the region’s use of shipping and just how underused the harbor remains. Among the challenges are that few in the region realize the logistical benefits and efficiencies of the ports, a trend that development specialists are working to reverse.
“We haven’t scratched the surface of what the future of these ports looks like,” says Greg Myers, executive director of the Growth Partnership for Ashtabula County. “We’re recognizing that there are opportunities here for us to leverage these legacy assets in new ways in the future.”
Commerce, Canals and a Watery Grave
This future is built on a rich maritime and industrial history that proved essential to the growth of northeastern Ohio – and the entire state – during the 19th and 20th centuries. Ashtabula – the first port to be surveyed on the Great Lakes – emerged as an active commercial, trade and shipbuilding hub in the years following the War of 1812.
In 1816, builder Anon Hamon christened the American Eagle, a wooden, two-masted schooner built and launched in Ashtabula. Charles Brown, among the early Great Lakes captains, piloted both the American Eagle that year and a second Ashtabula vessel constructed in 1817, the Traveller. Brown remained at the helm of that ship for more than a year, transporting cargoes of vegetables, salt, flour and dozens of other products to and from ports along Lake Erie from Detroit to Buffalo to Canada.
Brown, born in 1786 in Bath, England, died in 1854 and is buried in Lake Road Cemetery in Ashtabula.
His first commission, the American Eagle, then captained by J. Manchester, would shipwreck just off the mouth of the Grand River, according an 1820 account in the Cleveland Weekly Herald. “All on board, consisting of the captain and four sailors, have found a watery grave.”
Approximately 50 wooden hulled commercial sailing vessels combed the Great Lakes in 1818, pre-dating the age of steam. By that time, products could be shipped east via the Erie Canal.
Recognizing the commercial value of connecting the Great Lakes and the Ohio River, the Ohio & Erie Canal was completed in 1832, stretching from Portsmouth, through Akron, and terminating in Cleveland. By the late 19th century, the canal era was all but over, as railroads replaced inland waterways as a preferred means of moving freight.
Still, the idea of constructing a canal from Ashtabula through the Mahoning Valley to the Ohio River was a viable goal for some, especially as the steel industry expanded across the Mahoning Valley. As early as 1912, the National Waterways Commission had approved a canal route extending from Ashtabula to Pittsburgh, while other feasibility studies were conducted during the 1920s.
Building such a canal was Mahoning Valley Congressman Michael J. Kirwan’s most coveted goal. Kirwan, who represented the Valley between 1937 until his death in 1970, lobbied ceaselessly for the waterway, with the support of the steel industry. This made sense, since Great Lakes ports were now depots for raw material such as iron ore, which fed the mills along the Mahoning River. But the canal was never constructed, the steel industry retrenched, and major mills shuttered.
Instead, infrastructure monies were invested in other projects. In 1973, the state unveiled the “Lake to River” highway, or state Route 11, a north-south axis extending from East Liverpool on the Ohio River in Columbiana County to Ashtabula, underscoring the importance of connecting these ports and the potential impact on the economy.
In Ashtabula, the region attracted heavier industries that helped drive shipping to its ports. Up to 19 industrial facilities operated near Fields Brook – a tributary of the Ashtabula River – during the 1950s.
Ashtabula as a Logistics Hub
The ports factor prominently in the development of the recently completed Ashtabula County strategic plan, says the Growth Partnership’s Myers. The plan highlights resources unique to Ashtabula County.
“These assets are things like our deep-water ports, our electrical grid infrastructure, the natural gas pipelines, our highway infrastructure, our availability of land,” he says.
Using the ports, for example, presents a more efficient alternative to other means of transportation, particularly when there are companies that do business overseas.
“We’ve done a lot of freight analysis,” Myers says. More than 5,000 trucks a day, for example, move in and out of community, most of them outgoing. Some of these trucks contain products bound for the East Coast, where they are loaded on freighters and depart for an international destination.
“A lot of that product could be shipped by rail, or waterboard transportation,” Myers says.
As an example, he cites an Ashtabula company, Grand River Rubber & Plastics. The company manufactures rubber belts used in household vacuum cleaners. But the belts are shipped to China, where the vacuums are assembled, and then packaged and returned to the U.S.
“There are a lot of inefficiencies,” Myers says. While it might not be profitable for Grand River Rubber to singularly ship its product from the Port of Ashtabula, it could be less costly if Great Lakes ships were laden with many other products bound for similar regional destinations, sharing freight costs.
Logistics firms are finally taking notice, according to Myers. “We’re having conversations with some of these big logistics companies,” he says.
He believes that Ashtabula’s combined assets could help drive the creation of a giant logistics hub extending from Lake Erie to the Ohio River. “We could turn cargo in and out of the St. Lawrence to and from Rotterdam [the Netherlands] seven days faster than from New York,” he says. “We’re having some really interesting conversations.”
The Port Authority’s Winchell says soybeans grown by Trumbull County farmers, for example, are exported to Southeast Asia by way of truck to Cleveland, then shipped out. “We could load those right onto rail in Trumbull County and then right to Ashtabula,” he says. Another product, veneer lumber, could also be easily shipped from Ashtabula, instead of being transported by truck to the Port of New Jersey.
“Having these as anchors, there could be 40 or 50 opportunities within industry that could use outgoing logistics,” Winchell says.
Power is Everything
Simultaneously, the Port Authority, the Growth Partnership, and others, are working to enhance business opportunities in the region by emphasizing the abundance of water and electric power that future industries will require.
“Those opportunities create a new synergy with some of the other development and logistics projects that we’re working with,” Myers says. “A lot of these industrial projects that we’re looking at now need significant amounts of power. So we don’t have to worry about upgrades to our electrical infrastructure.”
Data centers, development of combined cycle power plants, chemical production, and creation of alternative energy sources such as hydrogen power, are all opportunities that the region is exploring as it moves forward, Myers adds.
Ashtabula, for example, was included within a hydrogen hub region established and funded during the Biden administration. “Things like utilizing natural gas to create derivatives around hydrogen. Those are things that we’re looking at, now that we’re seeing market interest in,” he says. “We’re competitive because we have access to natural gas but also have access to the other infrastructure they need to be able to create new opportunities around energy development.”
The Port Authority’s Winchell adds that its role includes raw water distribution, brownfield redevelopment, and specialty financing for certain projects. Central to Ashtabula’s power capability is Plant C, a former Union Carbide plant that once produced metals and chemicals during and immediately after World War II. Today it is owned by the Port Authority.
“It’s a massive site,” Winchell says. “That complex is really our bread and butter.” The plant produced power, steam and pumped water. “We maintain a permit to pull 200 million gallons of water a day from Lake Erie.”
In addition to major brownfield projects, smaller businesses stand to benefit from organizations such as Ashtabula 503 Corp., which manages revolving loan programs, minority business assistance, and other initiatives.
“We’ve grown over the years, from starting out with nothing to a capital base just under $5 million,” says Sarah Bogardus, executive director of Ashtabula 503. The organization recently provided financial help to a bakery in the city’s quaint harbor front tourism and nightlife district along Bridge Street. “We help smaller businesses, although we can get involved in larger projects,” she says.
Among these is the Riverbend Hotel and Suites by Wyndham, which overlooks Ashtabula Harbor. “We had a small part in that,” Bogardus notes.
Myers says partnerships with entities such as Lake to River Economic Development, Ashtabula County and the state of Ohio are essential to tap into vital resources that enable such initiatives to move forward.
“We’re a small organization,” Myers says, noting there are just five development personnel at the Growth Partnership, Port Authority and Ashtabula County 503 combined. “There’s no way we can do the work that we’re doing and be successful without having a team approach and regional approach. We need their ability, their knowledge base and access to the market that we just don’t have.”
Together, Myers says these partnerships have achieved significant results. “We’ve done more in the last five or six years than I would say this community has seen done in the decade or two prior – in terms of the ability to control your future,” he says. “I see this same collaboration with the new Lake to River team. There’s a shared vision.”