The Hulett automatic ore unloader was invented by George Hulett of Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

 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 in Conneaut, Ohio

Conneaut, Ohio

As of the census of 2000, there were 12,485 people, 5,038 households, and 3,410 families residing in the city. The population density was 473.4 people per square mile . There were 5,710 housing units at an average density of 216.5 per square mile...

. It was successful, and many more were built along the Great Lakes

Great Lakes

The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...

, especially the southern shore of Lake Erie

Lake Erie

Lake Erie is the fourth largest lake of the five Great Lakes in North America, and the tenth largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has the shortest average water residence time. It is bounded on the north by the...

 to unload boats full of taconite

Taconite

Taconite is a variety of iron formation, an iron-bearing sedimentary rock, in which the iron minerals are interlayered with quartz, chert, or carbonate...

 from the iron mines near Lake Superior

Lake Superior

Lake Superior is the largest of the five traditionally-demarcated Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded to the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Minnesota, and to the south by the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Michigan. It is the largest freshwater lake in the...

. Substantial improvements were later made on the design by Samuel T. Wellman

Samuel T. Wellman

Samuel Thomas Wellman, was an American steel industry pioneer, industrialist, and prolific inventor. Wellman was a close friend of electrical pioneer George Westinghouse, and Charles M. Schwab of Bethlehem Steel described Samuel T. Wellman as "the man who did more than any other living person in...

. It is these second-generation Huletts which continue to stand to this day.
The electrically powered Hulett unloader rides on two parallel tracks along the dock

Dock (maritime)

A dock is a human-made structure or group of structures involved in the handling of boats or ships, usually on or close to a shore.However, the exact meaning varies among different variants of the English language...

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

Rail tracks

The track on a railway or railroad, also known as the permanent way, is the structure consisting of the rails, fasteners, sleepers and ballast , plus the underlying subgrade...

 in between. Steel towers, riding on wheeled trucks, support girders that span the railroad tracks.

Along these girders runs a carriage which can move toward or away from the dock face. This in turn carries a large walking beam which can be raised or lowered; at the dock end of this is a vertical column with a large scoop bucket

Bucket

A bucket, also called a pail, is typically a watertight, vertical cylinder or truncated cone, with an open top and a flat bottom, usually attached to a semicircular carrying handle called the bail. A pail can have an open top or can have a lid....

 on the end. A parallel beam is mounted half-way down this column to keep the column vertical as it is 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 is lowered into the ship's hold, closed to capture a quantity (10 tons approx.) of ore, raised, and moved back toward the dock.

To reduce the required motion of the carriage, a moving receiving hopper runs between the main girders. It is moved to the front for the main bucket to discharge its load, and then moves back to dump it into a waiting railroad car, or out onto a cantilever

Cantilever

A cantilever is a beam anchored at only one end. The beam carries the load to the support where it is resisted by moment and shear stress. Cantilever construction allows for overhanging structures without external bracing. Cantilevers can also be constructed with trusses or slabs.This is in...

 frame at the back to dump the load onto a stockpile.

The Hulett can move along the dock to align with the holds on an ore boat. When the hold is mostly empty, the Hulett cannot finish the job itself. Workmen entered the hold and shoveled the remaining ore into the Hulett's bucket. More recently, a wheeled excavator would be chained to the Hulett's bucket and lowered into the hold to fill the Hulett.

The Hulett machine revolutionised iron ore shipment on the Great Lakes. Previous methods of unloading lake freighter

Lake freighter

Lake freighters, or Lakers, are bulk carrier vessels that ply the Great Lakes. The best known was the , the most recent and largest major vessel to be wrecked on the Lakes. These vessels are traditionally called boats, although classified as ships. In the mid-20th century, 300 lakers worked the...

s, involving hoists and buckets and much hand labor, cost approximately 18¢/ton. Unloading with Huletts cost only 5¢/ton. Unloading only took 5–10 hours, as opposed to days for previous methods. Lake boats 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 Lake Superior

Lake Superior

Lake Superior is the largest of the five traditionally-demarcated Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded to the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Minnesota, and to the south by the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Michigan. It is the largest freshwater lake in the...

 (unloading coal) and five at Gary, Indiana

Gary, Indiana

Gary is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. The city is in the southeastern portion of the Chicago metropolitan area and is 25 miles from downtown Chicago. The population is 80,294 at the 2010 census, making it the seventh-largest city in the state. It borders Lake Michigan and is known...

, 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 City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 to unload garbage. They were unsuited to tidewater ports because they could not adjust for rising and falling tides, and few were so used.

The lake's Huletts were used until about 1992, when self-unloading boats were standard on the American side of the lake. Most, if not all, have since been scrapped. In 1999, only six remained, the group of four at Whiskey Island in Cleveland, Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

 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

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 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.

External links

• Hulett Automatic Ore Unloaders Home Page at the Great Lakes Industrial History Center
• Hulett Ore Unloaders and George H. Hulett at the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
  American Society of Mechanical Engineers
  The American Society of Mechanical Engineers is a professional body, specifically an engineering society, focused on mechanical engineering....
  
  (ASME)
• Citizens Vision preservation advocacy site (photo)
• Comprehensive video showing Huletts in operation (video)