Page 37 - Rukert - 100th Anniversary

needed a terminal facility capable of unloading
the bulk fertilizer from boxcars directly to the vessel. Again, Rukert Terminals was up to the task. Cap convinced the Pennsylvania Railroad to construct a belt conveyor on its old ore pier in lower Canton, creating a bulk export facility. Within six months, Rukert Terminals had the operation up and running. Under the able supervision of Jimmy Hickman, it became one of the finest bulk-loading facilities on the East Coast.
Over the next couple of years, refinements
to the bulk and bagging operations enabled Rukert Terminals to load out a record 174,000 tons of bulk in 1956. That same year, 176,000 tons were bagged at Lazaretto, making a total of 350,000 tons of sulphate of ammonia exported through the port in 12 months. After completing the sulphate of ammonia contracts, the Pennsylvania Railroad ore pier facility was
used to handle other bulk products. For the next 10 years, thousands of tons of bulk soybean meal were exported through this bulk pier in lower Canton.
The spring of 1954 brought several personnel changes. When Charles Butz left Rukert Marine in April, John Landetta was hired to head up
the freight forwarding and steamship agency departments. Alfred E. Singley was also hired to help in the customhouse department. In May 1954, the Board of Directors at Rukert Terminals elected Jimmy Hickman and Bill Fleischmann to serve as Vice Presidents.
During the early 1950s, it became apparent that some coordinating, controlling authority would have to be set up to tie together the growing number of agencies and groups engaged in port operations. In 1956, the Maryland General Assembly enacted legislation establishing the Maryland Port Authority (now called Administration) as the single agency charged with coordinating the effort of the City
and State to carefully phase expansion of the public terminals in the Port of Baltimore. Immediately, Cap worried that one day in the future, the new authority would put private firms like Rukert Terminals out
of business. Cap’s rough-and-tumble waterfront experience gave him some strong convictions. He was 110 percent for free enterprise, and he had
a healthy suspicion of government at all levels. Bureaucrats of any kind were not for him.
It wasn’t long before one of Rukert’s customers informed Cap that the Maryland Port Authority (MPA) had quoted a lower rate than he was charging
on his commodities. Cap blew up and informed everyone that he would handle the matter personally.
ABOVE: Bagging operation. Left to right: Josephus Vaughn, Paul Neal, Archie Veal, James Whitmore and Roosevelt Woodard.
FACING PAGE:
(Top) Cap, Norman Sr. and Jimmy Hickman. (Bottom) S/S Billetal, which was the first vessel to dock at the new “A” berth.
PART I THE RUKERT STORY
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