Harbor Point has been in the news for the better part of 25 years since the manufacturing plant that processed chrome from chromite ore at this location from 1845 until it was to cease operations under Allied Chemical in 1989. Ever since 1999, when Honeywell completed a ten year
remediation effort that consisted of a 5-foot multi-acre clay cap, waterside perimeter embankments with a deep vertical hydraulic barrier to reduce flow to the groundwater and Harbor, this peninsula of land has been eyed by developers as another lucrative waterfront location immediately east of Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Despite a City Council go-ahead this summer, environmental questions remain and rightly so.
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Harbor Point site (2013),
Courtesy: Google Maps |
The 27-acres was declared by the United Stated Environmental Protection Agency and
Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) as a Super Fund site due to a culmination of 144 years of processing that left the industrial buildings, soil and groundwater contaminated with chromium (including
hexavalent chromium - recall, Erin Brockavich fame). Environmental studies confirmed the chromium was the source of the 'yellow ice' in the harbor in the winter and the MDE entered into a Consent Decree with the final owner to demolish and clean up hazardous contamination which cost a total of $100 million.
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Topographic Survey (1898)
Courtesy: JHU Map collection |
The history of this location is quite interesting and it seems that the hazards of chromium production at this location on a small peninsula jutting into the North Branch of the Patapsco River have been not long after it began operation. Potable water study as conducted by the New York board of health were reported in the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer on June 22, 1872 where many European cities were contrasted with Boston, Chicago and Baltimore for parts of inorganic and organic matter - Baltimore, in general, was on par with that of Chicago. Chemists then (and to this day) would use
potassium permanganate as an antiseptic and in treatment of waste water. The newspaper reported, without much uproar at the time, the amount needed to "decolorize" samples of water from Swann Lake (now known as
Lake Roland) requiring four and one half to 1,000 volumes, surprisingly compared with the pump water in Block Street taking 22 volumes!
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U.S. Geologic Survey 1960 Map of
Serpentine Deposits where
Chromite Ore was mined. |
Chromite ore is a black to brownish black mineral generally found in combination with iron (2 parts chromium to 1 part iron) within serpentine rock deposits in very limited locations within the United States - northwest of Baltimore and a little just north of the Pennsylvania-Maryland border. According to a U.S. Department of the Interior Geologic Bulletin, it was Isaac Tyson, Jr. (1792-1861) from a well-known Maryland family line of Quakers, who first discovered chromite. He realized its chemical significance, began mining the ore as early as 1808 on his farm in Bare Hills, and later Soldiers Delight (just east of Liberty Reservoir, Owings Mills, MD) in 1827. He bought up many of the deposit locations which supplied all of the world's chromite until the late 1800s. Most of the chromite was refined and processed in England until 1845 when he built the Baltimore Chrome Works on what is now known as the Harbor Point peninsula site.
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Jesse Tyson (1826-1906)
Photo Courtesy: Cylburn
Asoociation Archives |
One of Isaac's two sons that carried on the family business, Jesse Tyson, lived at the family's winter home at 6 East Franklin Street, became President of the Chrome Works, yet was a bachelor millionaire at the age of 65. As noted in
The Sun, he became the subject of a great deal of high society gossip when he started dating Edith Johns, daughter of a local Baltimore bar owner. The disparity in their ages caused a bit of a stir given Edith (one of the famed "Ten Beauties of Baltimore" at the time) was nineteen, but it didn't stop their marriage which occurred at her father's home on January 26, 1888. Shortly thereafter, he moved into what is now known as the
Cylburn Mansion that was recently completed as architected by prominent Baltimore architect
George A. Friedrich.
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Edith Johns Tyson (1868-1942)
Photo Courtesy: Cylburn
Association Archives |
In the mid 1890's the plant was either known as the Tyson or Baltimore Chrome Works. It's main manufacturing building was on streets bounded by Block, Point, Dock, and Will Streets, where
The Sun reported a boiler explosion in January 1875 and and major fire on October 6, 1895 which started at the carpenter shop on Block and Philpot streets burned for over an hour where several thousand tons of chrome ore were in the yard along with chrome in barrels damaged along with nearby rigger shops and two fishing skiffs. Oddly enough, another fire caused $10,000 in damage on December 5th of the same year.
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Allied Chemical (Chrome Works),
Photo Courtesy: Mark Layton, c1980 |
Chrome production here was enormous by the early part of the 20th century, effectively supplying chrome to nearly the entire U.S. and most of the world. The safety record was questionable with such a rigor of capacity as evidenced by two fires in five years, the first being on August 2, 1900 which caused approximately $60,000 in damage however, the value of this plant was not to be underestimated.
On August 6, 1902 after extended negotiations with two Glasgow, Scotland companies and one of Philadelphia, PA, ownership transferred from Jesse Tyson to the latter, when the Kalion Chemical Company purchased the plant for $1,000, 000.
Just after midnight on the morning of January 22, 1906, fire erupted at the Baltimore Chrome Works and resulted in a heavy financial loss amounting to near $200,000 of the plants' $1M worth at that time according to Washington's
Evening Star. The event was reported in newspapers across the United States and, along with Jesse's death that year, signaled the end of a prosperous line of
Baltimore families.
Shortly before his death, unable to continue operations, it was sold and formally merged in May 1906 with Henry Bower Chemical Manufacturing, the Kalion Chemical Company and the Ammonia Company, all of Philadelphia. In 1985, it was acquired by Allied Chemical (later known as Allied Signal, and then
Honeywell) and we have come full circle around from a messy and toxic past on this once scenic peninsula - the streets are nearly all wiped from the map, having been replaced by an environmental dome of protection. Developers and Baltimore's Mayor and City Council see the future as "a jewel in the crown of development that encircles Baltimore's Inner Harbor." Just how long the glimmer will last is anyone's guess.
References: U.S. Geologic Bulletin 1082-K, 1960; MD Dept. of the Environment; and articles from the Baltimore Sun, Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, and Washington Evening Star.
