50 Business View - October 2015
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 1950 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 “most people don’t real-
ize we have ports in Indiana, but, in fact, we have three,”
it’s easy to understand the skepticism that even many in
the Hoosier State shared years ago, until two visionary
business leaders, George A. Nelson, and Patrick W. Clif-
ford, stood on the shoreline of Lake Michigan in 1932,
and dreamed of building “a great public port” there.
For 30 years, Nelson worked to make that dream a reali-
ty, and by the early 1960s, after the St. Lawrence Seaway
had been completed and water-borne 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 1961, the state legisla-
LOGISTICS
