49
ort traffic and the regional economy kept expanding. In 1920,
state legislators authorized $50 million in loans to improve
Port facilities, and federal funding was used to dredge the Patapsco
and the Chesapeake’s channels to the greater depth of 42 feet.
From 1914 to 1929, as demographics shifted toward urban
areas, America’s consumption of canned fruits and vegetables
more than doubled. Eating food from tin cans, which were cheaper
than glass containers, became the household norm. Sparrows
Point was the only plant east of Pittsburgh producing all grades of
tin plate. Demand for canned items soared, augmented by
lithographic advances which made it possible to decorate papered
cans with fancy advertising to appeal to upscale retail markets.
In turn, other lines of Baltimore-area businesses banded by the
maritime chain profited — advertising, packing, paper producers,
warehousing and ground transportation. The Tin Decorating
Company of Baltimore — whose former factory anchors Tindeco
Wharf in trendy Canton — was the largest tin decorating plant
in the world when it opened in 1914, capable of producing four
million tins daily. In 1955, 6,000 Marylanders were employed
making tin cans.
The industry also made the product pitched by residential siding
salesmen in Baltimore-born director Barry Levinson’s film “Tin Men.”
The last of the working sail-powered boats were seen around
the Port after the turn of the 20th century, hauling up lumber from
the Carolinas and Virginia, and transporting oysters and coal. As
late as 1930, there were still 100 cargo schooners operating in the
Bay. In the harbor’s outer reaches — Curtis Bay, Canton and Pata-
psco Neck — clusters of military installations and utilities comple-
mented investment by private industry to pack the Port area. The
U.S. Coast Guard’s only shipyard opened in Curtis Bay in 1899. Just
up Curtis Creek, B&O built a mammoth $1.5 million coal pier.
The business of expediting the flow of cargoes through the
maritime chain is the purview of freight forwarders and customs
brokers: John S. Connor and Shapiro & Company both opened shop
in Baltimore soon after the turn of the century, and have expanded
their sea and airfreight operations to keep pace with the increasing
complexities of international trade. The paperwork on a typical
inbound shipment is staggering — hundreds of pages of customs
regulations, thousands of tariff items, quotas, and multiple financial
documents — while forwarders work to customize transportation
door-to-door.
Tin
M
en
Facing page: Two U.S. Coast
Guard cutters undergoing
repairs at the Coast Guard
Shipyard on Curtis Bay.
Established in 1899, the facility
is the only major repair yard
operated by the Coast Guard.
Above, left: Typical output of
Port’s maritime chain, both the
product and its container.
