All,

The following is a preservation item, but it only slightly rail related, as you will see. Several of you appear to know the Milwaukee area well (I gather from the postings below), so I thought you would be interested in it.

It is my understanding that the Solvay Coke Plant is along the rail line used by Amtrak just south of E. Greenfield Ave. It was founded in 1906, and closed for good in 1983.

An individual named Larry Tucker is in talks with the developer about preserving the compressor house, either as a museum, or by preserving some of the equipment and adaptively reusing the compressor house itself. If anyone is interested in contacting him, I can supply you with his e-mail address.

He sent me a batch of photographs of the plant, which I have uploaded to an album in my "Surviving World Steam Lizards" Photo Gallery on my "Surviving World Steam" Project website. The following link will take you directly to that album.

Notice in the pictures of the plant site that two old tank cars and at least one truck remain on the plant site. More about the plant's rail operations in a moment.

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Solvay Coke Plant, downtown Milwaukee, WI, USA
james@survivingworldsteam.com

The link below is from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel website, and was last updated on Feb. 22, 2001. I assume that the issues of ownership have been resolved, and that redevelopment is beginnning.

It is Mr. Tucker's understanding that the site will redeveloped as a Marina and condos. It is our hope that the compressor house can serve as a focal point for a public area, with resteraunts, coffee bar, etc. which will also be a tie to the area's past. To date, the developer seems willing to entertain our idea, but nothing firm to date.

He will give Mr. Tucker access to the site to take more pictures from what I understand. I also hope the site can be declared a Historic American Engineering Site, as one of the last remaining vintage compressor houses in the country, and at least documented by the HASE people before it is demolished.

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

City wants to turn industrial site into a ... park
james@survivingworldsteam.com

Most interesting ...wonderful collection of machinery, a former coke plant site for condos and a marina. The coke plant site at Lorain, OH is so heavily soaked in coke byproducts that there is absolutely no use for it. Long (and I mean long) term bioremediation is its only hope.

lamontdc@adelphia.net

The final link below is from Don Ross' excellent website. It gives a good general description of Solvay Coke Plant, and plant's rail network.

It was a dual guage system that included at steam locomotives, diesels, self-propelled hopper cars, and homebuilt electric cab units during it's long history. Unfortunately, all but one of the diesels have been been scrapped; it is at the Kettle Morraine RR.

Like any industrial plant, this website abounds in asbestos and other hazardous chemicals. Reuse of the site of any kind will involve a long, expensive cleanup. This will have to take place regardless of the intended use of the site, and I hope that the compressor house itself will somehow be preserved.

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Milwaukee Solvay Coke Co.
james@survivingworldsteam.com

I recall two lines of rusty hopper cars in a small yard south of the complex, being surrounded by trees, probably ex Milwaukee Road 3-bays. An interesting site, I investigated the electrics from outside the fence in the 90s. If Im not mistaken, they were built-up from old Illinois Terminal parts and all of this later went to the Savannah roundhouse group. I wonder if a 600 volt generator/power station still exists on the site. It was fascinating industrial archeology.

There was a 250 VDC motor generator set. It was partially chopped up before I got there. Savannah got some parts after the lokies were scrapped out in Milwaukee. Some parts have gone into the streetcar restoration for the proposed River Street trolley idea. Some parts were traded to Baltimore for some of their surplus. Some are still in Savannah awaiting use.

dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

This site was quite a complex to wander through. There were stationary steam engines, Steam turbines, steam pumps at verious locations on the property. The compressor room has 5 vertical buckeye blower engines, 2 horizontal buckeye blower engines, and I think there are 3 I-R air compressors. The whole plant was DC right to the end and the steam turbine generator is still in place although all of the switch gear was removed my the scrapers back in the 80's.The boiler room has 8 water tube boilers, 4 were gas fired 4 were coal fired. There are still 3 small blower engines in the basement on the boiler house.
Over a 7 year period we were able to haul large quantitys of parts tools and machinery out of this plant. The machine shop, boiler shop, pipe shop and carpenter shop were for the most part still intact from when the plant shut down.
Some of the in plant track layout was still in place until resently. As of about a year ago there was still a couple of 50ft flat cars there, a short NYC depressed center flat car and a tankcar containing unknown liquid. We aquired a USRA 2- bay C&S hopper car and a 65ton GE # 107 (it has since been trade).


greenchili@tds.net

With such a rich varity of equipment and buildings on the grounds; it would be same to just "scrape the place clean", and build yet another sterile cluster of condos and marina that could be anywhere in the USA.

I think it would great to keep the compressor house intact, and move some of the other noteworthy items into the compressor house to turn it into a museum. Then, as the surrounding area is redeveloped, the buildings could pick up the architectural themes of the existing buildings, and other artifacts could be stuffed and mounted around the grounds.

An example of what I am visualizing is the Alamo Quarry Market in San Antonio, Texas (link below.) Built on the grounds of the former Alamo Cement Plant, several of the existing buildings were adaptively reused (complete with smokestacks), and various artifacts (including a Davenport steam locomotive, desiel locomotive, and quarry cars) are on display in the traffic circles. There is even signage describing what they are, and what they were used for.

The surrounding buildings pick up the architectural themes of the original buildings, and when we ate at the Chili's resteraunt, there were pictures and paintings of the plant in it's original condition. No, there is not a museum, but it would have been so easy to form one if the Alamo Cement Plant had as rich a variety of surviving equipment as the Solvay Coke Plant has. It would also offer some low-cost entertainment for visitors who don't want to empty their pockets before they leave.

While I am talking about plants here, the same is true for railroad stations and other remaining buildings. Another example is the incorporating of the old train station in downtown Houston into the new baseball stadium, along with the replica steam locomotive on the ball field wall.

No, it is not a museum, nor will it allow you to easily interpret what the original structures did. But, it at least leaves something behind that otherwise would have been flattened with no hope of preservation. And, it will peak the interest of some, who will want to know more about what the structure/facility did. A museum could provide the interpretation, and preserve more equipment that would otherwise just be scrapped.

Nobody would bother to visit such a museum in the middle of an urban jungle if that is all you had. But, if it is part of an urban renewal plan that includes shops and eating places along with entertainment such as a ball park or marina, it could thrive on the cash flow of visitors to other venues, as well as residents in the surrounding condos. (I don't think those condos and marina would even find tenants if they are not part of larger redevelopment project.)

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

> This site was quite a complex to wander
> through. There were stationary steam
> engines, Steam turbines, steam pumps at
> verious locations on the property. The
> compressor room has 5 vertical buckeye
> blower engines, 2 horizontal buckeye blower
> engines, and I think there are 3 I-R air
> compressors. The whole plant was DC right to
> the end and the steam turbine generator is
> still in place although all of the switch
> gear was removed my the scrapers back in the
> 80's.The boiler room has 8 water tube
> boilers, 4 were gas fired 4 were coal fired.
> There are still 3 small blower engines in
> the basement on the boiler house.
> Over a 7 year period we were able to haul
> large quantitys of parts tools and machinery
> out of this plant. The machine shop, boiler
> shop, pipe shop and carpenter shop were for
> the most part still intact from when the
> plant shut down.
> Some of the in plant track layout was still
> in place until resently. As of about a year
> ago there was still a couple of 50ft flat
> cars there, a short NYC depressed center
> flat car and a tankcar containing unknown
> liquid. We aquired a USRA 2- bay C&S
> hopper car and a 65ton GE # 107 (it has
> since been trade).


Alamo Quarry Market