Who shipped coal to Milwaukee?

[Anonymous]

I never knew about the North Shore's coal traffic, and forgot about the Lakeside power plant. The Lakeside operation would make a really interesting model railroad.

The Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Co. operated the Lakeside line as part of its extensive interurban system. It interchanged at various points with Milwaukee Road, C&NW and Soo Line, and the St. Francis interchange with the North Western was the closest to the Lakeside plant. One of the freight motors used on this line, the L-9, is still in operation at the East Troy Trolley Museum.

The Lakeside plant was the first electrical generating plant in the world to be fueled entirely by pulverized coal. Coal was unloaded from rail cars near the pulverizer building, and was transfered to the boiler house by enclosed overhead conveyors. The conveyors fed large storage bins over the boilers. The Railway & Light Co. built the power plant around 1921, and owned it until the electrical utility portion of the company was sold to Wisconsin Electric Co. in 1938.

The old Oneida Street power plant (now part of the theatre complex) was the location of the first experiments, by TMER&L engineers, with pulverised coal. Coal deliveries apparently were made by truck, and before that, by horse-drawn wagon.

The Commerce Street power plant on the west side of the Milwaukee River (now an office building) was served by boat or scow and not by rail (as far as I can tell) even though the plant was located immediately next to Milwaukee Road's Chestnut Street line (the "Beer Line").

[dknelson]

Coal still arrives in Milwaukee by lake boat -- there are big piles of it visible from the Hoan Bridge over the harbor.
At least one power plant was located on the Milwaukee River where the Milwaukee Repertory Theater is now located and I have to assume they got their coal by boat or scow.
However the Lake Side Power Plant on the south side was rail served -- by the CNW off the "old" (Passenger) line in St Francis WI and at Powerton on the Milwaukee Road, where electric locomotives took it to the power plant up to the mid 1960s. That power plant also had the last streetcar which was used to transport workers from the bus stop on Kinnicinick (spelling?) Ave to the plant. I have seen photos showing two bay hoppers, including some CB&Q wood composite hoppers into the 1960s. This operation got a few hoppers at a time, not entire unit trains like the huge power plants at Oak Creek and the like. And back in those days I doubt if this was western coal.
More likely southern illinois coal.
There was a rail served coal dealer, Schneider, right off of the CNW's Mitchell Yard on Milwaukee's south side. Again that was carload stuff not unit trains and I suspect they too got two bay hoppers of heating and furnace coal. I can remember smelling a few coal furnaces when I'd take nightly walks in Bay View in the late 1980s. There were tons of small coal dealers in Milwaukee into the 1950s, such as Hometown Ice and Coal
Dave Nelson

[1shado1]

Fiverings,

Thanks for all the great info!!! I MAY have been given some of that info when we toured the boat when I was 10, but I certainly didn't remember any of it (too interested in the boat).

I did a Google search for Milwaukee Solvay Coke Co., as you suggested.
I'm embarassed to say that I spent at least an hour browsing through all the info, and will probably spend even more time looking. As I said, all I recalled from 37 years ago was the boat itself. Thanks again for telling me, and steering me to, "The Rest of The Story"![tup][tup][tup][:D]

Jeff

[Anonymous]

Jeff --

The lake boat you toured was docked in the Kinnickinnic River at the Milwaukee Solvay Coke Co. facility. Solvay converted coal (mostly brought in by lake boat) into coke, and in the process made coal gas, ammonia, coal tar and other byproducts.

The coal gas was sold to Milwaukee Gas Light Co., and continued to be produced even after natural gas pipelines reached Milwaukee in 1949. The plant produced both metalugical coke and foundry coke. I believe much of the coke (particularly that of the metalurgical variety) was shipped out by lake boat.

The Solvay plant was also served by Milwaukee Road and C&NW -- their main lines intersected in the immediatwe vicinity of the plant. Solvay ceased production in 1983, and the plant now is completely gone. Fortunately, photos of the plant, before and during demolition, can be found on the web through a Google search.

[1shado1]

Wow. This topic sure brings back some memories. My parents knew a guy that was the captain of one of those lake boats that hauled coal (or maybe was it coke) to Milwaukee. I think I was about 10 years old when we got to take a "tour" of his ship on a Saturday. Pretty cool to a ten year old kid like me. I remember it being docked on the west side of the river, somewhere in the general neighborhood of Allen-Bradley (but obviously a few blocks east of AB), somewhere around the east end of a road in the Greenfield or National Ave area.

Jeff
P.S. Anybody know if the AB (now Rockwell) clock is still the largest 4-faced clock in the world?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the good answers. The coal coming by lakeboat makes perfect sense. The Port of Milwaukee was a major one, something had to ship in bulk. Before this I was thinking the coal came up from the Ill. fields, although didn't there use to be a fair amount of coal mined in eastern Iowa?
Anyway, thanks again.

[Paul W. Beverung]

I agree with fiverings on the coal issue. The rivers were lined with coal yards that received coal from lake boats. They were unloaded by bridge unloaders like the one Walters has. I used to go down town to railfan and watch the boats unload. Milw Rd and C&NW both had rail service to the coal yards and probably loaded and hauled from them to other points.

Fiverings: Drop me a line. When did you grow up in Milw and where? I was in Shorewood untill 1965 when I went into the Army.

[tatans]

The same guy that shipped coal to Newcastle?

[dinwitty]

The North Shore line did do some coal business, mostly with near the line industries.
The new book North SHore Line Freight shows one coal company in Milwaukee.

I will be modeling the NS focusing on the freight side of it.

[Anonymous]

The great majority came by lake boats. Those vast piles of coal (which I can remember while growing up in Milwaukee) along the Milwaukee and Menomonee Rivers, and on Jones Island, were all unloaded from lake boats.

There may have been small amounts from Indiana (source: CTH&SE) via Milwaukee Road, and from southern Illinois ( from C&NW, IC or CB&Q shippers)(in the latter 2 cases, via connections with MILW or C&NW).

Milwaukee Road Historical Society publications have noted that lake-boat coal was unloaded on the west bank of the Milwaukee River, below the North Avenue dam and close to the Humboldt Yard, and shipped to "inland" Wisconsin points via Milwaukee Road during the time period in question.

[Anonymous]

Coal was once the primary fuel for heating homes & buildings along with industrial uses. Does anyone know the primary sources for Milwaukee WI? That would be who's cars would be historicaly accurate for the period from the 30's to the 50's? Which fields would they be coming from? I'm willing to be " creative " in my modeling but it's best to know the rules before you break them.

Thanks, Scott G