Port News
5/10/09 - Port of Oswego Authority chief expects this year's cargo traffic to be a bit better than last season... click here
Webcast Links
Meetings of the Port of Oswego Authority are available for viewing through webcasting. Click on the link below to redirect to the Port's webcasting page.
History
The Port of Oswego was officially commissioned in 1955, although it had been a strategic port in the history of North America since the War of 1812.
The Port was known as a ship-building port before the turn of the century, and many woodcuts and lithographs of the period illustrate the harbor populated with the tall masts of schooners and sailing ships. A number of historic buildings remaining along the river today provided services to the ship-building industry in the early days.
Late in the 19th century, salt shipments from Syracuse were transported west through Oswego to the Welland Canal and Lake Erie. With the opening of the American west, the grain trade was born; schooners brought wheat shipments for the flour mills that lined Oswego’s two hydraulic canals and mountains of corn for a major starch factory. The timber trade was important during this period and at one point in the 1870’s Oswego was the largest lumber port in the United States. Currently, the public authority is operated by a nine-member board appointed by the Governor.
Nearly 120 vessels call on an annual basis and the port moves a little bit more than one million tons a year. We move products such as cement, corn, salt and windmills. Eleven companies currently call the port home for at least a portion of their domestic and international shipping operations. In 2007, 1700 trucks left the port with almost 125 people employed at one point or another over the past year.