port
VIEW
G
rain grown by farmers in Maryland and Pennsylvania
once accounted for 20 percent of the Port of
Baltimore’s exports. In the 1950s, three grain elevators
were located in the city, with the largest being the B&O
Locust Point facility. The pier and elevator were first constructed in
1872, but burned down 19 years later. Its replacement was struck
by lightning and suffered the same fate.
In 1922, the railroad built a 230-foot elevator in concrete. This
facility was the most efficient in the world, receiving rail cars and
then carrying grain on conveyors to ships or to the elevator for
storage at a rate of 150,000 bushels an hour.
STORY BY KATHY BERGREN SMITH
Silo Point’s Grip on Grain
The grain trade peaked in 1956, when the B&O grain pier
handled 102,000 tons. The next year, barely more than half of
that tonnage crossed the docks.
B&O was taken over by the Ohio-based Chesapeake and Ohio
(later CSX), and the railroad turned its attention to coal. The grain
pier languished for several decades until Turner Development
purchased it in 2003. After several years of negotiation and
construction delays, Turner converted the facility into Silo Point,
a sleek condominium complex.
Today, export grain goes to southern ports on barges loaded
in Baltimore.
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The Port of Baltimore
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May/June 2014
