Ashtabula

Book excerpt: Ashtabula, Ohio has long been a major Great Lakes port city. During the peak of its harbor traffic in the early to middle 20th century, Ashtabula was a shipping and railroading boom town that thundered with the sounds of coal and iron ore transport. Immigrants from several nations came to work at the city's docks and chemical plants, creating a unique ethnic mix full of Old World heritage and traditions that gave the area its identity. Prepared in cooperation with Ashtabula Great Lakes and Coast Guard Memorial Museum, this book offers fascinating photographic images of Ashtabula ships, trains, buildings, and people, primarily from the boom era, which began in the 1870s and lasted for about a century. It concludes with a briefer look at the renaissance underway in the city today, as Ashtabula prepares to celebrate her Bicentennial along with that of the entire state of Ohio.