Page 28 - Rukert - 100th Anniversary

know that this location would eventually become the heartbeat of the company.
The first step in the development of the Pier
5 property was building a warehouse to handle the potash accounts, which enabled the company to cancel the lease on the Block Street Wharf. Someone told Cap that industrialist Jacob Shapiro was tearing down a number of steel-fabricated buildings in Pottstown, Pennsylvania that had been used by a bankrupt cement-manufacturing firm. In 1938, Cap went to Pottstown and bought two steel buildings, 350 by 50 feet in dimensions. They were dismantled by Shapiro’s company and shipped to Baltimore, then erected side by side on the Pier 5 property. Next, a 25-foot addition was erected in between the buildings, which resulted in a sizable 42,500 square foot transit-shed warehouse.
and widened by 20 feet. A two-story shed was also constructed on the pier.
After the Depression started waning, business continued to increase rapidly, and Cap decided
it was time for further expansion. The pier at Jackson’s Wharf could not be lengthened further
to accommodate the growth, because this would have interfered with the port warden line and safety requirements of the Corps of Engineers. Instead, Cap began a hunt for a new site in the Canton area. In 1937, Rukert Terminals entered into a 99-year lease with the Pennsylvania Railroad for the Pier 5 facility at 2100 South Clinton Street on the Canton waterfront. The property included six acres of open land and a 400-foot wooden pier. Little did Cap
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