Business View - October 2015 61
in the country. It allows them to bring in the local corn,
and then export the ethanol on barges, down to the Gulf
or along the way. This Port has the largest footprint for
future growth – roughly 600 acres available for develop-
ment, most of it, recently-acquired land. In order to keep
Indiana in play for major economic development projects
of 500 or 1,000 acre facilities, the Port went out and in-
vested in nearby land to create a mega-site at Mount Ver-
non that could handle a 500-acre facility or even bigger,
if need be. It’s one of the only mega-sites on the inland
waterway system that’s already connected to a working
port. We have the dock, the rail, and the terminal opera-
tion is already in place. So an industrial facility could just
show up and plug in their infrastructure to the Port and it
would have access to all the barge lines and five Class 1
railroads. The key thing there is the multi-modal access,
because you can find thousands of acres anywhere, but
to put together a key access point on the Ohio River, and
five Class 1 railroads within several miles of a port, is a
pretty unique operation.”
If there is any lingering skepticism about the wisdom of
building ports in the State of Indiana, Peacock is ready to
put all the doubting to rest. “Actually, it is a tremendous
advantage for our port system to be able to handle mari-
time shipments 600 miles from an ocean,” he says. “We
can connect to two different ocean ranges and be at the
epicenter of the American heartland. We’re at the cross-
roads of America, here in Indiana - the median center of
the U.S. population. We’re at the connection point for all
the railroads, and we have direct access to the two larg-
est inland waterways - the two busiest inland waterways
- in the country. And to have a statewide port system that
connects these two ranges is pretty unique. There’s no-
body else in the country that has a port system that’s a
statewide operation.”
In 1932, Patrick Clifford said the following to George
Nelson as the two stood looking out onto a Great Lake:
“There she is - Lake Michigan - pointed down into the
heartland of the USA like a great finger into the bread
basket of America. As sure as we stand here, a great pub-
lic port will be built in this area. Maybe not in our time,
but let’s see if we can make it happen.” Today, thanks
to visionary leaders, stalwart elected officials, farsighted
businessmen, and competent administrators, the Ports
of Indiana have certainly “made it happen.” Or, in the
words of Jody Peacock, “The Ports are booming!” No ar-
gument, there.
PREFERRED VENDORS
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