55
ore fundamentally, the Port’s competitive position was
undermined by the absence of a dedicated oversight
body empowered to coordinate the Port’s operations, promote its
growth and development, and provide public funds for modern-
ization — the quasi-governmental, Port Authority-concept which
had enabled rival ports to leapfrog over Baltimore.
Support for the value of a forceful public role in the Port’s
development acquired traction after a 1949 study undertaken
on behalf of the Baltimore Association of Commerce, and picked
up the weight of public opinion through early 1956, until state
legislators — prodded by an intense lobbying effort from the
business community’s newly formed Greater Baltimore Com-
mittee — authorized the creation of the Maryland Port Authority,
enabling it to build major public marine terminals using both
its bonding power and the financial wherewithal of a 0.5 percent
duty levied on profits of state corporations. Prime Port Authority
movers including Maryland Gov. WilliamMcKeldin, GBC Chairman
William Boucher, Baltimore’s Junior Association of Commerce,
Dr. Mildred Otenasek,
The Sun’s
maritime voice
,
and State Roads
Commissioner Robert O. Bonnell, Sr. finally could stop pushing.
The Port Authority moved decisively to transform Baltimore
from a “railroad port” into a “shipper’s port.” Its signature move
was the 1959 purchase of Baltimore’s 356-acre Harbor Field airport
tract which became the Dundalk Marine Terminal. In 1964, the
Port Authority leased the B&O’s Locust Point piers, signaling the
railroad’s acquiescence to the need to change Baltimore’s water-
front modus operandi of the last 100 years.
The Port Authority soon managed other facilities at Canton
and Clinton Street. Baltimore’s waterfront acquired a sleek new
face — modernized marine terminals like the Port Authority’s
first makeover, at Hawkins Point in 1958, a site which soon
enticed corporate heavyweights like U.S. Gypsum Company and
Kennecott Refining Corporation.
Vested with the independence to
freely use its public revenue stream, the
Port Authority worked to put Baltimore
on equal footing with other major American ports.
Foreign promotional offices were established, effectively
championing the Port of Baltimore as an American point
of entry. Dredging was needed to accommodate ever-
bigger deepwater ships, and Baltimore, which enjoyed
two access routes to the sea, had twice the need of
other ports. The main channel was deepened to 42 feet
and widened to 800 feet, a project that was no sooner
completed when Congress authorized a deeper channel
of 50 feet and up to 1,000 feet wide.
The 31-mile channel in the upper Bay connecting the Port to the
C&D Canal was excavated to 35 feet, improving the strategically
critical link handling New York’s container ship traffic, which
would otherwise dock in Virginia to save the time and expense
of making the long run up to Baltimore after passing through
Virginia’s twin capes at the mouth of the Chesapeake.
What goes around, comes around: Maryland industries which
owed their existence to Baltimore’s waterfront and waterways
were now instrumental in massive public works — such as the
Harbor Tunnel and Bay Bridge — girding and connecting the very
areas thosewaterways divided, creating an improved transportation
network which, in turn, stimulated more commerce. Bethlehem’s
Sparrows Point shipyard and steel mill were major contributors
to the tube built beneath Baltimore’s harbor, completed in 1957.
John Edwin Greiner first came to work as a draftsman for B&O
in 1885; he rose to assistant bridge engineer before founding
Baltimore’s J.E. Greiner Company, which was the lead contractor
on the 4.3-mile span across the Chesapeake completed in 1952.
Facing page: A seagull’s
view of the Chesapeake Bay
Bridge. The 4.3-mileWilliam
Preston Lane Memorial Bridge
linked Maryland’s eastern
and western shores upon its
1952 completion. Above, top:
Baltimore’s Harbor Tunnel on
its opening day in 1957.
Above: Bill Boucher was the
first chairman of the Greater
Baltimore Committee.
M
Maryland Port
A
uthority
