A Seaport on the Prairie

[Music] this film has been made available through the courtesy of the audio visual section of the illinois state museum springfield illinois come and visit the museum you are always welcome foreign [Music] so [Music] [Music] our well just about nine minutes after eight o'clock that's close enough let's have another traffic check edens is running slow from front to the junction eisenhower has a stalled car and ridgeland the dan ryan that's slowing down a bit from 95th to 71st stevenson expressway is jammed [Music] 11 minutes after 8 o'clock the [Music] neighborhood [Music] is that you don't know what you've got to it's gone [Music] and she [Music] humidity is down to 65 which is kind of good news wins out of the north at 13 miles an hour and right under those sunny skies we're sporting 65 degrees at wls [Music] it [Music] to ride a train [Music] gotta get to my me side right right [Music] [Music] 44 and wls for that roberts 65 degrees in chicago [Music] [Music] [Music] abu before the storm saint lawrence we never had the the big class of foreigners i mean we had a real small class 400 but now we have everything uh big foreigners and everything else coming in well for for years yeah the boats used to take tugs coming in all the time since the ball thruster came in why they don't use too many tugs for the foreigners coming in st lawrence waterway well that's helped us out otherwise we'd have been damn you out of business i was stooped i've opened up [Applause] [Music] what [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Laughter] at yeah set three hiring time [Applause] operators in group two [Applause] put it right down that planet [Applause] y'all that's all man oh it is more international certainly you've got boats all over the world here but you only had votes from the united states and canada before coming in here [Applause] now before the strength alliance seaway opened up i remember uh just about the only only boats of any any size you would see would be the steel boats but you never seen a foreigner a frenchman or a german or an indian ship or a british ship in here but now you've got everything here everything [Applause] started out here when i was 18 graduate from high school and i've been out here for 13 years first job i ever had oh it's just plain dirty that's all just plain dirty well yeah it's all right a little dusty but uh pretty good good money make a few i'm single and you work seven months a year and you're off four months it's in the winter i go to acapulco uh we're having more containers just gonna be so it's gonna be a great great thing and this is gonna bring more goodness here bigger ships and um before they used to send 2010 ships and now they'll send uh four or five thousand ships in cape you're definitely capable of competing with uh any port uh anywhere one quarter of the toes here maybe our uh american vessels and the rest is all foreign i think it's ideal myself i think it's sitting right in the heartland of the united states i can't see any better location for any part if you compare the last 10 years it has grown tremendously in tonnage well i just hope someday that that we could produce something that we could get you to the bottom of the ship and turn it upside down and shake it on the dark side i think it will be profitable for all it's nearly 1 000. [Music] [Applause] [Music] to ride a [Music] [Applause] it is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] a car goes [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] right it's a wild town let's put it that way [Music] i swear that i love [Music] birdstown is where all the river people live and it's just one continuous rat race down there they just keep coming and going [Music] i don't look around town like them i've spent most of my life out there on the river [Music] is [Music] the face of my pretty [Music] yeah that's right we uh just keep going 24 hours a day out here we never stop it's back and forth between chicago and st louis we uh get down to st louis there we uh trade toes with other boats or bigger boats come up from new orleans to st louis and we take their toes uh back on up into chicago [Music] i i know how many i have to cook for and i never plant a meal just come to me i just go ahead and cook oh i'm i talk all the time though and tell what i'm trying to say you know i just go go go talking all times i guess that's why i get by like i do yeah chocolate cherry pie the captain likes cherry pies but i didn't know that till today and he said well you've got cherry i'll eat that [Applause] [Music] my grandfather's retired lock master from lagrange lock down here and i've always been around the river and at the time i got out of service i was living with my grandparents wasn't working or anything one day a boat come through and they were shorthanded need a deckhand so my grandfather shipped me out that wasn't working so he put me to work and i more or less been out here ever since we gotta tighten this toe up good now hey bob go back there and set up some four and a half reagan yeah okay boys let's tighten her all up now we gotta tighten her up good he's gonna have a hard steer up here [Applause] tighten ratchets boys yeah i'll get them toothpicks now put them in that right there i just heard the money was pretty good so i thought i'd give it try well it's rougher what i thought it'd be here on the river actually 62 here i went on this river when i was two weeks old it gets pretty tarts because sometimes you get wires that's all kinked up and they try to fight back you roll through a summer and you free the death through the winter [Music] yeah it's a pretty nice job what's so nice surprises time off work 30 days and be off there [Music] well in the full year like the hunt we caught 76 coons last left fall well my dad run a towing business and uh towed grain out of cougar creek the game has turned out when we first started out why it was somewhat sort of adventuresome tourists but that adventure turned to work because we were out there handling all that reagan and moving barges and [Applause] oh my gosh yes i'd say there's 80 boats where there used to be one so now we get pick all the barges up and put them together up in chicago and we trade towers with our bigger boats that run from st louis to new orleans the biggest majority of them are repeat boats they'll go up to say peoria or lasalle with a nail change toad with a smaller boat it'll go on up into the chicago harbor [Music] now tony this is charlie over to windy city we just come back up with the three grain barges from down south we're going to drop them on off over there at the continental bee elevator in about an hour see you later [Music] barges well they come from the new orleans all the way up to mississippi to different port river port and then into chicago well uh corn is probably you're the better grain you get the oats and barley they itch beans are a little hard on your stomach but the corn is the best shot different guys have different grain bottom like uh beans don't bother me so much you know but uh like some guy can't stand it being done but me don't bother me well there's corn corn is uh very dusty but it's very easy to breathe you know it's all really bad everybody likes to work in corn what a duck that's pretty rough and then uh like i think the tough house i'm doing my voice right we run the winch we go down in the hole we spell each other on all these shots you have to have men on the winch and you have to have men in the hole at all times [Applause] usually you're on a different job every day you're on a different ship every day and you're and if you're not on a ship you're on a barge i mean it's not root it's not routine you know it varies from day to day been on lakers bulk carriers freighters tankers you know and you hit them all in the same week [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign as the international transportation hub of the midwest illinois recognizes that deep draft ocean vessels and inland barges are vital to the economy of our state international trade creates six hundred thousand jobs for illinois families and the port of chicago contributes 160 million dollars annually to our economy the seaport of chicago has played a significant role in making illinois the leading export state in the nation in both agricultural and manufactured products since the opening of the st lawrence seaway in 1959 international cargo through the seaport of chicago has increased 232 percent the state's economic growth and the quality of life of our citizens rests in large measure upon the continued growth of world trade the illinois department of business and economic development is staffed with experts well qualified in the fields of foreign trade and transportation the department offers assistance and information to businessmen housewives and school children alike the research staff will find answers to your questions no matter how elementary or how complex in the new illinois we are working on new information systems to serve all the people of the state we want to show you that illinois is a good place to live and work we accommodate you