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Business View Magazine
The Ports of Indiana
Connecting “the crossroads of america” to the world
Indiana is in the heartland of the United States. Indianap-
olis, its capital, is 1,950 miles east of the port city of San
Francisco on the Pacific Ocean, 645 miles west of the
Port of New York, on the Atlantic, and 715 miles north of
New Orleans, where the Mississippi River flows into the
Gulf of Mexico. So when Jody Peacock, Vice President of
the Ports of Indiana, admits that “some people don’t real-
ize we have ports in Indiana, but, in fact, we have three,”
it’s easy to understand the skepticism that many in the
Hoosier State shared years ago when two visionary busi-
ness leaders, George A. Nelson and Patrick W. Clifford,
stood on the shoreline of Lake Michigan in 1932, and
dreamed of building “a great public port” there.
For nearly 30 years, Nelson worked to make that dream
a reality, and by the early 1960s, after the St. Lawrence
Seaway had been completed in 1959 and waterborne
commerce began to multiply on the now unobstructed
corridor between Lake Michigan and the Atlantic, the
political and financial stars finally aligned in Indiana. In
With connectivity to maritime, rail and highway shipping options, the Port of Indiana-Jeffersonville set a shipping record in 2014 of 2 million+ tons.
