The Hulett was an ore unloader that was widely used on the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...

of North America. It was unsuited to tidewater ports because it could not adjust for rising and falling tides, although one was used in New York City.

History

The Hulett was invented by George Hulett of

Conneaut, Ohio Conneaut ( ) is a city in Ashtabula County, Ohio, Ashtabula County, Ohio, United States, along Lake Erie at the mouth of Conneaut Creek northeast of Cleveland. The population was 12,841 at the 2010 Census. Conneaut is located at the far northeast ...

, in the late 19th century; he received a patent for his invention in 1898. The first working machine was built the following year at Conneaut Harbor. It was steam powered, successful, and many more were built along the

, especially the southern shore of

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has t ...

to unload boats full of

taconite Taconite () is a variety of iron formation, an iron-bearing (over 15% iron) sedimentary rock, in which the iron minerals are interlayered with quartz, chert, or carbonate. The name "taconyte" was coined by Horace Vaughn Winchell (1865–1923) � ...

from the iron mines near

Lake Superior Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...

. John W. Ahlberg converted the Huletts in Conneaut to electricity in the 1920's. Substantial improvements were later made on the design by Samuel T. Wellman. The Hulett machine revolutionised iron ore shipment on the Great Lakes. Previous methods of unloading

lake freighter Lake freighters, or lakers, are bulk carrier vessels that operate on the Great Lakes of North America. These vessels are traditionally called boats, although classified as ships. Since the late 19th century, lakers have carried bulk cargoes of m ...

s, involving hoists and buckets and much hand labor, cost approximately 18¢/ton. Unloading with Huletts cost only 6¢/ton. (in 1901 dollars) Unloading only took 5 to 10 hours, as opposed to days for previous methods. Lake boat designs changed to accommodate the Hulett unloader, and became much larger, doubling in length and quadrupling in capacity. By 1913, 54 Hulett machines were in service. Two were built at

(unloading coal) and five at

Gary, Indiana Gary is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. The city has been historically dominated by major industrial activity and is home to U.S. Steel's Gary Works, the largest steel mill complex in North America. Gary is located along the ...

, but the vast majority were along the shores of Lake Erie. The additional unloading capacity they brought helped permit a greater than doubling of the ore traffic in the 1900–1912 period. A total of approximately 75 Huletts were built. One was installed in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

to unload garbage. The lake's Huletts were used until about 1992, when self-unloading boats were standard on the American side of the lake. All have since been dismantled. In 1999, only six remained, the group of four at Whiskey Island in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

, the oldest. Another set was used unloading barges of coal in South Chicago until 2002 and were demolished in the spring of 2010. In spite of the Cleveland machines being on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

and designated as a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark, they were demolished in 2000 by the Cleveland Port Authority to enable development of the underlying land. The Port Authority disassembled and retained two Huletts, to enable their reconstruction at another site, but the reconstruction has not yet happened.

Operation

The electrically powered Hulett unloader rode on two parallel tracks along the

dock A dock (from Dutch language, Dutch ''dok'') is the area of water between or next to one or a group of human-made structures that are involved in the handling of boats or ships (usually on or near a shore) or such structures themselves. The ex ...

s, one near the edge and one further back, ordinarily with four

railroad tracks A railway track (British English and UIC terminology) or railroad track (American English), also known as permanent way or simply track, is the structure on a railway or railroad consisting of the rails, fasteners, railroad ties (sleepers, ...

in between. Steel towers, riding on wheeled trucks, supported girders that spanned the railroad tracks. Along these girders ran a carriage which could move toward or away from the dock face. This in turn carried a large walking beam which could be raised or lowered; at the dock end of this was a vertical column with a large scoop

bucket A bucket is typically a watertight, vertical Cylinder (geometry), cylinder or Truncation (geometry), truncated Cone (geometry), cone or square, with an open top and a flat bottom, attached to a semicircular carrying handle (grip), handle called ...

on the end. A parallel beam was mounted halfway down this column to keep the column vertical as it was raised or lowered. The machine's operator, stationed in the vertical beam above the bucket for maximum cargo visibility, could spin the beam at any angle. The scoop bucket was lowered into the ship's hold, closed to capture a quantity (10 tons approx.) of ore, raised, and moved back toward the dock. The workmen who operated the Hulett uploaders were known as Ore Hogs. To reduce the required motion of the carriage, a moving receiving hopper ran between the main girders. It was moved to the front for the main bucket to discharge its load, and then moved back to dump it into a waiting railroad car, or out onto a

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a canti ...

frame at the back to dump the load onto a stockpile. The Hulett could move along the dock to align with the holds on an ore boat. When the hold was almost empty, the Hulett could not finish the job itself. Workmen entered the hold and shoveled the remaining ore into the Hulett's bucket. In a later development, a wheeled excavator was chained to the Hulett's bucket and lowered into the hold to fill the Hulett. File:Huletts P6290296.JPG, Drive chain File:Huletts P6290297.JPG, Hulett unloader bucket shaft File:Huletts P6290295.JPG, Hulett bucket

References

External links

Hulett Automatic Ore Unloaders Home Page
at the Great Lakes Industrial History Center
Hulett Ore Unloaders
an
George H. Hulett
at the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History *{{cite web , url= http://www.asme.org/history/brochures/H199.pdf , title= Designation as Historical Mechanical Engineering Landmark , url-status= dead , archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20040919044219/http://www.asme.org/history/brochures/H199.pdf , archivedate= 2004-09-19 by the

American Society of Mechanical Engineers The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is an American professional association that, in its own words, "promotes the art, science, and practice of multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences around the globe" via "continuing ...

(ASME)
Citizens Vision preservation advocacy site
(photo)
Comprehensive video showing Huletts in operation
(video) Bulk-handling cranes Bulk material handling Historic American Engineering Record in Ohio Maritime history Great Lakes Engineering vehicles Industrial Revolution Steelmaking Culture of Cleveland History of Cleveland