Lorain History Boat Tour
Lorain Light House
The Lady Charleston served as the tour boat.
Charles Berry Bascule Bridge
The former Kenneth King Fishery.
Terminal-Ready Concrete Plant
Norfolk Southern Lift Bridge
Lofton Henderson Memorial Bridge
The so-called "Ghost Ship" began life as the Romeo & Annett and ended it as the Upper Canada.
Abandoned Steel Mill
Steel Mill Water Intake
"Monkey Island's" official name is Bungert Island.
You can tell this is a young bald eagle because it's head hasn't yet turned white.
At the top of this hill sets an abandoned train. It belongs to Republic Steel.
Osage Orange ("Monkey Ball")
Wikimedia
Photo taken by Bruce Marlin.
Wikimedia
Photo taken by Bruce Marlin.
There is nothing like seeing a city from the perspective of a river that runs through it. I had the chance to do just that by taking a two hour boat ride through Lorain, Ohio via the Black River—a venture run by the Lorain Port Authority in partnership with the Lorain Historical Society. The former provides the boat and the latter sends a person to give you the history of the places you are seeing. It’s well worth doing.
You’re picked up at Dock A at the Port Lorain Marina. The tour boat takes you around the Lorain Lighthouse to get to the mouth of the Black River, giving you the chance to see the lighthouse up close and personal from the water. The boat’s captain pointed out that the it leans a bit, prompting some to call it the “Leaning Lighthouse of Lorain.” Why it leans isn’t as romantic as is its Pisa counterpart: a Canadian freighter hit the its base in 1969. Which no one noticed at the time because by then the lighthouse had been abandoned. When someone did realize it, the base was repaired but the lighthouse still tilts.
Lorain’s lighthouse is the third to give warning to passing vessels. The first, known as the Black River Light-Station, began operation in 1837 and was rebuilt in 1857. It had no house for the keeper, forcing him to rent one using money from his annual pay. One in which keepers could live was needed, and in 1913 Congress appropriated $35,000 to build such a structure on Lorain Harbor’s West Breakwater Pier. Construction began in 1916 and although it didn’t finished until 1919, the lighthouse went into service in 1917.
You’re picked up at Dock A at the Port Lorain Marina. The tour boat takes you around the Lorain Lighthouse to get to the mouth of the Black River, giving you the chance to see the lighthouse up close and personal from the water. The boat’s captain pointed out that the it leans a bit, prompting some to call it the “Leaning Lighthouse of Lorain.” Why it leans isn’t as romantic as is its Pisa counterpart: a Canadian freighter hit the its base in 1969. Which no one noticed at the time because by then the lighthouse had been abandoned. When someone did realize it, the base was repaired but the lighthouse still tilts.
Lorain’s lighthouse is the third to give warning to passing vessels. The first, known as the Black River Light-Station, began operation in 1837 and was rebuilt in 1857. It had no house for the keeper, forcing him to rent one using money from his annual pay. One in which keepers could live was needed, and in 1913 Congress appropriated $35,000 to build such a structure on Lorain Harbor’s West Breakwater Pier. Construction began in 1916 and although it didn’t finished until 1919, the lighthouse went into service in 1917.
Blue Heron Rookery
To withstand the brutal waves that Lake Erie produces, the lighthouse’s walls consisted of thick steel-reinforced concrete. Steel was also used to make its door jams, window frames, stairs and shutters, the last of which originally weighed 200 pounds apiece and were later replaced by lighter ones weighing a mere 150 pounds each. The building has three floors plus a basement. The History of the Lorain Lighthouse, 1917–2017 says the “structure stands fifty-eight feet above the water.” Its basement wall is thirty inches thick, the first floor wall twenty inches, the second floor wall fifteen inches, and the third floor wall ten inches. In 1919 a revolving fourth-order Fresnel lens was installed. When the light was electrified in 1932, it projected a beam of thirteen miles.
In 1965, the Coast Guard decided to replace the lighthouse with an automated beacon. The now obsolete lighthouse was slated for demolition. A contract to do the work was awarded to the Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company for $25,000, but upon inspecting the site and seeing how thick its walls were, it raised the cost to $75,000. Demolition would begin on October 1, 1965.
This gave time for the Save-the-Lighthouse Committee to form and meet for the first time on August 3 of that year in an effort to prevent the lighthouse’s demolition, but the Coast Guard was determined to proceed. Fortunately the Coast Guard had also decided demolition couldn’t start until the new beacon was operational, and bad weather that fall prevented the laying of the needed power cable, forcing the lighthouse decommission to be delayed until early in 1966.
In 1965, the Coast Guard decided to replace the lighthouse with an automated beacon. The now obsolete lighthouse was slated for demolition. A contract to do the work was awarded to the Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company for $25,000, but upon inspecting the site and seeing how thick its walls were, it raised the cost to $75,000. Demolition would begin on October 1, 1965.
This gave time for the Save-the-Lighthouse Committee to form and meet for the first time on August 3 of that year in an effort to prevent the lighthouse’s demolition, but the Coast Guard was determined to proceed. Fortunately the Coast Guard had also decided demolition couldn’t start until the new beacon was operational, and bad weather that fall prevented the laying of the needed power cable, forcing the lighthouse decommission to be delayed until early in 1966.
Still keen on saving the structure, the Save-the-Lighthouse-Committee partnered with the Lorain Civil Memorial Association and together they negotiated a deal with the Coast Guard that allowed them to lease the lighthouse for the next five years. The Lorain Civic Memorial Association disbanded before the lease expired, and neither it nor the Save-the-Lighthouse-Committee did anything to improve the lighthouse. Upon the lease’s expiration, the Coast Guard retook possession. Rather than demolish it, it decided to sell it to a non-profit so long as it committed to maintaining the structure. The Coast Guard sold it to the Lorain Historical Society for $1.00 in 1977.
The trouble was you need to money to maintain it and the Lorain Historical Society didn’t have that kind of cash. By 1987 it needed $700,000 in internal and external repairs. (That’s a bit over $2 million in 2026 money.) In 1988 the Lorain Port Authority stepped in and created the nonprofit Port of Lorain Foundation, which then raised the money for repairs and renovation, most of which came from the federal government. In 1990 the Lorain Historical Society sold the lighthouse to the Lorain Port Authority for $1.00. At that point the Lorain Lighthouse Foundation took it over.
The waters surrounding Lorain are a major freshwater fishing ground in part because of a nearby artificial reef that serves as a breeding ground for walleye, yellow perch and smallmouth bass. Of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie has by far the most fish, and it’s the tenth largest body of fresh water in the world. Until recently, Lorain still had a small, family-owned fishing business called the Kenneth King Fishery, but it’s now closed. We passed by its building during our tour.
Despite its name, the Black River is not that color. It’s a deep green. In the 1700s the French and British called it either the Rivière de la Cuillère (Spoon River) or Reneshoua River. No one knows where it got its present name. Possibly it’s because of the black shale that lined its banks. During the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, it served the needs of Lorain’s industries, proving the perfect means to transport raw materials to factories, but it was also used as a dumping place for toxic waste. In the past twenty years the river has been rehabilitated. It’s now used for recreational activities such as boating and fishing, Large vessels still come down its dredged portion, which is about twenty-nine feet deep for the river’s first four miles, after which the depth drops to about four feet. There’s a place called the turning basin where these large vessels turn around so they can head back into Lake Erie.
The trouble was you need to money to maintain it and the Lorain Historical Society didn’t have that kind of cash. By 1987 it needed $700,000 in internal and external repairs. (That’s a bit over $2 million in 2026 money.) In 1988 the Lorain Port Authority stepped in and created the nonprofit Port of Lorain Foundation, which then raised the money for repairs and renovation, most of which came from the federal government. In 1990 the Lorain Historical Society sold the lighthouse to the Lorain Port Authority for $1.00. At that point the Lorain Lighthouse Foundation took it over.
The waters surrounding Lorain are a major freshwater fishing ground in part because of a nearby artificial reef that serves as a breeding ground for walleye, yellow perch and smallmouth bass. Of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie has by far the most fish, and it’s the tenth largest body of fresh water in the world. Until recently, Lorain still had a small, family-owned fishing business called the Kenneth King Fishery, but it’s now closed. We passed by its building during our tour.
Despite its name, the Black River is not that color. It’s a deep green. In the 1700s the French and British called it either the Rivière de la Cuillère (Spoon River) or Reneshoua River. No one knows where it got its present name. Possibly it’s because of the black shale that lined its banks. During the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, it served the needs of Lorain’s industries, proving the perfect means to transport raw materials to factories, but it was also used as a dumping place for toxic waste. In the past twenty years the river has been rehabilitated. It’s now used for recreational activities such as boating and fishing, Large vessels still come down its dredged portion, which is about twenty-nine feet deep for the river’s first four miles, after which the depth drops to about four feet. There’s a place called the turning basin where these large vessels turn around so they can head back into Lake Erie.
On the part of the river we toured, there are three major bridges. The first we passed under was the Charles Berry Bascule Bridge. Previous called the Erie Avenue Bridge and known to Lorain’s citizens as the “Bascule Bridge,” it opened in 1940 and is only one of only three bridges in Ohio run by the Ohio Department of Transportation (O.D.O.T.). A bascule bridge is a drawbridge the uses counterweights to lift the two sections that go up. This particular bridge is the second largest of its type in the world. It goes up and down about 1,500 times a year.
In 1988 it was renamed the Charles Berry Bascule Bridge in honor of Corporal Charles Berry, a Lorain resident who served in the Marines during World War II. He belonged to a machine gun crew. While on Iwo Jima, one night the Japanese tried to overrun his crew’s position. The two sides got into a hand grenade fight and at one point one of these deadly explosives landed in the crew’s foxhole. Bascule threw himself over it to save his comrades, resulting in his death. For this he won the Medal of Honor.
The next bridge we passed under was the Lorain Railroad Lift Bridge. It’s owned by the Norfolk Southern Railroad and despite looking as if it belongs in a post-apocalyptic movie, it’s still in use and manned twenty-four hours, seven days a week. (If anyone from Norfolk Southern is reading this, a new paintjob wouldn’t go amiss.) This is the third railroad bridge to span this location, the previous two having belonged to the Nickle Plate Railroad. Officially called the New York, Chicago & St. Louis, it informally used the name Nickel Plate in its public literature until being bought up by Norfolk & Western, the Norfolk Southern’s predecessor. The Nickel Plate’s first bridge was built on June 21, 1881, and it was a 200 feet swing truss bridge—that is, a section swung out to allow for large vessels to pass by.
In 1988 it was renamed the Charles Berry Bascule Bridge in honor of Corporal Charles Berry, a Lorain resident who served in the Marines during World War II. He belonged to a machine gun crew. While on Iwo Jima, one night the Japanese tried to overrun his crew’s position. The two sides got into a hand grenade fight and at one point one of these deadly explosives landed in the crew’s foxhole. Bascule threw himself over it to save his comrades, resulting in his death. For this he won the Medal of Honor.
The next bridge we passed under was the Lorain Railroad Lift Bridge. It’s owned by the Norfolk Southern Railroad and despite looking as if it belongs in a post-apocalyptic movie, it’s still in use and manned twenty-four hours, seven days a week. (If anyone from Norfolk Southern is reading this, a new paintjob wouldn’t go amiss.) This is the third railroad bridge to span this location, the previous two having belonged to the Nickle Plate Railroad. Officially called the New York, Chicago & St. Louis, it informally used the name Nickel Plate in its public literature until being bought up by Norfolk & Western, the Norfolk Southern’s predecessor. The Nickel Plate’s first bridge was built on June 21, 1881, and it was a 200 feet swing truss bridge—that is, a section swung out to allow for large vessels to pass by.
It was replaced it with a second, taller swing bridge in 1904 that spanned 340 feet and weighed 860 tons. In 1960 the Army Corps of Engineers undertook a project to deepen Lorain’s harbor and parts of the Black River, and at that time it was decided to also replace the swing bridge. By now Nickel Plate had become Norfolk & Western, and in 1975 the current lift bridge was completed at a cost of $6.5 million. Unlike the Charles Berry Bridge, train traffic takes precedent over river vessels, so if you need this bridge to lift, call ahead to schedule an appointment.
The third bridge we went under was the Lofton Henderson Memorial Bridge. Unlike the Charles Berry Bridge, where auto traffic can be stopped for a half hour or more as the bridges lifts to accommodate a passing vessel, the Lofton Henderson is high enough that it doesn’t need to be a drawbridge. Completed in 1940, it was built to alleviate traffic congestion. Originally known as the High-Level Bridge, it was renamed in October 1991 as the Lofton Henderson Memorial Bridge in honor of Lorain resident Major Lofton R. Henderson. During World War II he served as a Marine Corps pilot he died in the Battle of Midway as he tried to bomb a Japanese carrier. He is still listed as missing in action.
As we approached the Lofton Henderson, something unexpected caught my eye: a half-sunken boat sat near one of the bridge’s piers! It turned out to be the Upper Canada, a car ferry built in 1949. Ninety-five feet stem to stern with a thirty-six feet beam, she was originally christened the Romeo & Annett, and for sixteen years served as a twelve-car ferry in New Brunswick’s Chaleur Bay. Sold to the Ontario Department of Highways in 1965, she was repurposed as ferry between the mainland and Wolfe Island in Lake Ontario as the Upper Canada.
The third bridge we went under was the Lofton Henderson Memorial Bridge. Unlike the Charles Berry Bridge, where auto traffic can be stopped for a half hour or more as the bridges lifts to accommodate a passing vessel, the Lofton Henderson is high enough that it doesn’t need to be a drawbridge. Completed in 1940, it was built to alleviate traffic congestion. Originally known as the High-Level Bridge, it was renamed in October 1991 as the Lofton Henderson Memorial Bridge in honor of Lorain resident Major Lofton R. Henderson. During World War II he served as a Marine Corps pilot he died in the Battle of Midway as he tried to bomb a Japanese carrier. He is still listed as missing in action.
As we approached the Lofton Henderson, something unexpected caught my eye: a half-sunken boat sat near one of the bridge’s piers! It turned out to be the Upper Canada, a car ferry built in 1949. Ninety-five feet stem to stern with a thirty-six feet beam, she was originally christened the Romeo & Annett, and for sixteen years served as a twelve-car ferry in New Brunswick’s Chaleur Bay. Sold to the Ontario Department of Highways in 1965, she was repurposed as ferry between the mainland and Wolfe Island in Lake Ontario as the Upper Canada.
Replaced by a newer ferry in 1977, the Beausoleil First Nation on Lake Huron’s Christian Island bought and used her as a ferry from 1996 to 1999. After that she somehow made her way into Lake Erie and from there to Lorain and up the Black River where she was abandoned at her present spot in 2003. Who brought her there is as unknown as who owns her. The Lorain Port Authority has no intention of removing her. As recently as 2020, she was still floating, but judging by her current state, it won’t be long before she goes under the river for good.
Past her we saw industrial sites, some abandoned, some used. One of the abandoned structures was the old steel mill that traces its history back to 1895. The mill was established by Tom Johnson, who later became Cleveland’s progressive mayor. At the time he already had a steel mill in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, but after it was damaged by the Johnstown Flood in 1889, he decided to move it to somewhere along Lake Erie’s southern shore. He agreed to build it in Lorain so long as Black River was straightened and dredged to accommodate large ships. Called the Johnson Steel Street Rail Company, it fired up its furnaces on April 1, 1895. Johnson sold it to J.P. Morgan’s Federal Steel Company in 1899, at which point it the mill was renamed the Lorain Steel Company. In 1901 it became part of Morgan’s conglomerate U.S. Steel. The Lorain mill’s name changed again in 1903 to National Tube Company, an appellation it kept for the next sixty years.
At one point the mill employed 10,000 to 12,000 workers (sources vary). These laborers, mostly immigrants, needed somewhere to live, but the banks were unwilling to give most of them mortgages for houses, so the company created its own mortgage program for them. This brought many into the middle class who otherwise might not have managed it. After changing hands several times, the company split in two, with one owned by Republic Steel and the other by US. Steel. Both closed their Lorain plants, and the chances of them reopening is not high. At present the two companies still own 700 acres of land in Lorain.
Leaving the river’s deep section, we passed by “Monkey Island,” its real name being Bungert Island. Once owned by the Bungert family, it was an excellent place to grow sweetcorn and graze livestock. To reach it, the family used a flat-bottomed scow hooked to a cable that served as a ferry. One story says it’s called Monkey Island because sometime in the past some monkeys from a circus escaped and made it their home. Another story says that teenagers came here to “monkey around.” It’s most likely called Monkey Island because it has a number of Osage-orange trees that produce a fruit known as “monkey balls.” Humans don’t eat them, nor do most animals. Squirrels pull them apart to get at the seeds, and deer are known to eat them occasionally. One theory purports that this tree evolved during the Ice Age and it was megafauna like giant sloths and mammoths that ate the fruit.🕜
Past her we saw industrial sites, some abandoned, some used. One of the abandoned structures was the old steel mill that traces its history back to 1895. The mill was established by Tom Johnson, who later became Cleveland’s progressive mayor. At the time he already had a steel mill in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, but after it was damaged by the Johnstown Flood in 1889, he decided to move it to somewhere along Lake Erie’s southern shore. He agreed to build it in Lorain so long as Black River was straightened and dredged to accommodate large ships. Called the Johnson Steel Street Rail Company, it fired up its furnaces on April 1, 1895. Johnson sold it to J.P. Morgan’s Federal Steel Company in 1899, at which point it the mill was renamed the Lorain Steel Company. In 1901 it became part of Morgan’s conglomerate U.S. Steel. The Lorain mill’s name changed again in 1903 to National Tube Company, an appellation it kept for the next sixty years.
At one point the mill employed 10,000 to 12,000 workers (sources vary). These laborers, mostly immigrants, needed somewhere to live, but the banks were unwilling to give most of them mortgages for houses, so the company created its own mortgage program for them. This brought many into the middle class who otherwise might not have managed it. After changing hands several times, the company split in two, with one owned by Republic Steel and the other by US. Steel. Both closed their Lorain plants, and the chances of them reopening is not high. At present the two companies still own 700 acres of land in Lorain.
Leaving the river’s deep section, we passed by “Monkey Island,” its real name being Bungert Island. Once owned by the Bungert family, it was an excellent place to grow sweetcorn and graze livestock. To reach it, the family used a flat-bottomed scow hooked to a cable that served as a ferry. One story says it’s called Monkey Island because sometime in the past some monkeys from a circus escaped and made it their home. Another story says that teenagers came here to “monkey around.” It’s most likely called Monkey Island because it has a number of Osage-orange trees that produce a fruit known as “monkey balls.” Humans don’t eat them, nor do most animals. Squirrels pull them apart to get at the seeds, and deer are known to eat them occasionally. One theory purports that this tree evolved during the Ice Age and it was megafauna like giant sloths and mammoths that ate the fruit.🕜