The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for management of the navigable waterways of the United States. The Civil Works/Navigation Division provides services to water born transportation systems including rivers and harbors.
Under its authority under the Clean Water Act, the Corps issues permits for work in the waters of the United States.
Periodically, the Corps’ Water Resources Support Center has compiled useful information about the facilities available to commercial shipping interests in the major ports, Boston being Port Series No. 3. Included are detailed maps and descriptions of cargo facilities, dry docking, marine repair, shipbuilding, energy facilities, warehouses, and rail lines into the port. The BPL’s holdings of Port Series No. 3 include volumes from 1922 to 1994. Much of the information that used to be printed is now available online at the Waterborne Commerce Statistics Center.
In addition, some of this series is scanned and available online.
Port Facilities guides in the BPL’s holdings are also published by the Port of Boston Authority, Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) and the Boston Shipping Association.
In the 19th century cargo handling facilities were often associated transport companies, particularly railroad and steamship companies so, for example:
According to a 1897 publication of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, Boston, Massachusetts, at the time Boston’s principal imports and exports tended toward agricultural products.
Our holdings include a number of Boston Chamber reports of maritime activity from the first half of the 20th century. The Army Corps’ Port Series No. 3 identifies the owners, operators and products handled at the terminals, many of them processing energy (coal, petroleum) products and bulk raw materials up through and beyond World War II. The longest strikes in the port’s history developed as technology changed, bringing in mechanized material handling and containerization.
The Massachusetts Port Authority now operates:
Boston Freight Terminals operates a multimodal freight forwarding company intersecting Conley, Logan Airport, and the Boston By-pass Road truck route.
Eastern Salt Company operates a dry bulk terminal in Chelsea. Prolerized New England Company handles bulk scrap metal.
Energy supplies including home heating oil, gasoline, jet fuel, and liquified natural gas are discharged to fuel terminals found primarily along the Chelsea River and the Everett waterfront:
Most of the our holdings on this topic are promotional materials encouraging shippers to use these facilities.
Boston at one point had hundreds of wharfs, docks and piers on which to receive and discharge cargo. Many were constructed as end points for railroads coming from inland. A search for wharfs, docks and piers in our catalog turns up many more documents than shown here. Those written in the 19th century certainly pertain to working maritime facilities. The more recent items are plentiful but a significant percentage of them were prepared to advance real estate ventures proposed on derelict wharfs.
You may notice that this list does not identify hundreds of wharfs, docks and piers . In most cases, a single item naming those facilities represented in our collections was selected to give an idea of the scope of the holdings. Additional links may be found in the Waterfront Neighborhoods section. Further search on terms such as “Wharfs” AND “Boston” in our catalog may be productive.
The 19th and much of the 20th century waterfront was lined with warehouses for dry and cold storage of goods transferring among ships, railroads and local transport. Often built by railroad companies, Boston’s storage facilities held sugar, ice, grain, gypsum, and manufactured goods to name a few. Warehousing companies provided specialized handling equipment in addition to enclosed space and the labor needed to move materials from one transport mode to another.
As raw materials and finished products were increasingly moved by rail, warehouse space was converted to other uses. Particularly significant was the change in the 1970s to containerized shipping as products were loaded into steel boxes which could be offloaded directly onto a truck chassis, eliminating the need for purpose-built storage facilities.
We have few items that describe maritime storage. Additional information can be found in the Army Corps of Engineers Port Series No. 3.
Boston has or had a number of dry docks and marine railways on which ships could be built or hauled out for repair:
In the 19th century Boston was noted for building wooden clipper ships, most famously Donald McKay’s yard in East Boston. There are no longer yards that produce new commercial vessels, though we have some historical studies and information about the now-closed Fore River Shipyards in Quincy. Some records are proposals to redevelop closed shipyards.
The most complete listing of Boston’s ship repair facilities can be found in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Port Series No. 3, of which we several in the series.
From the mid-19th century railroads dominated the transport of goods to and from the port of Boston among them:
Changes in demand and the growing use of trucks for transport imperiled the railroads. In the 1960s, the Prudential Center was constructed over Boston & Albany’s Back Bay yard. Height limitations ended the use of double stacked cars and safety requirements effectively ended transport of any hazardous cargo under the Pru to the Boston piers. Until the late 20th century, Boston & Maine maintained track into the Mystic Piers in Charlestown. In the 1990s, construction of the Central Artery/Tunnel project interrupted rail service to South Boston, now largely replaced by a haul road. When B&M proposed abandonment of the line, Massport purchased the right-of-way for a haul road.
We hold a collection of references to rail in its more prosperous days and the Leventhal Map Center has numerous railroad maps. Samples of the holdings of both institutions are included. Information about the later 20th century changes is located primarily in permitting documents.