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11 Most Endangered
Hulett Ore Unloaders
Year Listed: 1999
Location: , Ohio
Current Status: Endangered
Threat: Deterioration, Neglect
Significance
Looming above the docks like 96-foot-tall steel grasshoppers, the Hulett Ore Unloaders have been landmarks on the Lake Erie shoreline since the turn of the century. Constructed by inventor George H. Hulett and considered an engineering wonder in their day, the giant hydraulic machines gained fame as the largest and most technologically advanced means of unloading ore from massive ships docked at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River. For more than 90 years they loaded and unloaded hundreds of ships, helping to make Cleveland one of the nation's busiest ports--but then new technologies made them obsolete. Now these symbols of the area's rich industrial and shipping heritage stand quiet, idle and deteriorating. The Cleveland Cuyahoga Port Authority, which owns the ore unloaders, is planning to tear them down to reuse the site for expanded port activities. If action isn't taken soon to save these industrial marvels, an important chapter of Cleveland's history will be reduced to scrap metal.
Updates
After their listing, the local Port Authority and the City of Cleveland hammered out a compromise with the preservation community that saved two Huletts from outright demolition. The port agreed to dismantle and store the two unloaders for a period of five years while funds were raised for their restoration and relocation. However, efforts to secure land for relocation of the Huletts fell through, and now the Port Authority’s tenant wishes to use the land where they’re being stored. Moving the unloaders and reassembling them is estimated to cost around $6 million. The Port Authority has no plans for reconstruction, despite the fact that the original Cleveland Landmarks Commission authorization for demolition of two of the four Huletts in 1999 was specifically conditioned on a requirement that the Port Authority would work cooperatively with other parties to preserve and reconstruct the Huletts.
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