The Hulett Ore Unloaders are a Cleveland landmark, a link to our past, and a part of our industrial heritage. Currently, the Cuyahoga County Port Authority is planning to demolish them in order to gain additional dock capacity. We can't let this happen! If we demolish them, we destroy a piece of our city's personality, and work toward erasing our collective memory.

Six public meetings have been held so far regarding the future of Cleveland's Huletts: February 25, 1999; March 18, 1999; April 15, 1999; May 13, 1999; June 3, 1999 and a Cleveland Landmark's Commission vote on June 10, 1999.

At the May 13 meeting, four separate proposals were offered to save the Huletts. Each offered different solutions, from leaving all four in place, to relocating two of them.

The Port Authority restated its case that it is economically feasible to save only one Hulett, which will then be stored indefinitely, and later rebuilt at an unspecified location "sometime" in the future.

Day by day, it looks less likely that all four will remain in place. The Port is adamantly refusing to cooperate with proposals to leave or relocate all four, or even more than one. However, the cases made by the presenters at the 5-13 meeting have shown that it indeed makes sense to save at least two, if not all four, of the Huletts. Furthermore, the Port Authority and Oglebay-Norton (the shipping company leasing the port), should be compelled to act as good corporate citizens. They should at least be willing meet the people of Cleveland on some common ground.

Recent Developments: The result of the 6-10-99 meeting was a 'stay of demolition' of the Huletts for another six months, to further examine the proposal to save and relocate two of them to the Flats Oxbow. Recently, the Landmarks Commission pushed a new agenda through that OK'd the demolition of two Huletts immediately, the preservation of just one, and six months to raise money to save the second. It seems the Mayor's office put pressure on the Commission, and they cracked. Looks like economics wins over history again.