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Governing Body Board of Directors--The port is governed by a nine-member Board of Directors, four of whom are appointed by the Governor of the State of Illinois and five by the Mayor of the City of Chicago. Their five-year staggered appointments require confirmation by the State Senate for the Governor's appointments and the City Council for the Mayor's appointments. The Board elects its own Chairman and Vice Chairman, and meetings are held on the third Friday of each month at the offices of the Port District, subject to change at the Board's discretion. Additional Board information regarding members and meetings. Request Info on Upcoming Board Meetings. Harborside International Golf Complex The Illinois International Port District completed its 36-hole championship quality golf complex in 1995 on land that previously had been used as Land Reclamation. Designed by famed golf course architect Dick Nugent, the course is in the links tradition, fashioned after the waterside upland courses of Scotland and England and is one of the largest and most dramatic adaptive re-use projects anywhere in the country. The complex also boasts a 58-acre training academy and Frank Lloyd Wright prairie style clubhouse. For more information visit the Harborside website at: www.harborsideinternational.com Special Awards received by the Port St. Lawrence Seaway Port Pacesetter Award - 1994, 2004, 2005, and 2006 More Historical Information Founded at the mouth of a river on Lake Michigan by an 18th century fur trapper named Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable, Chicago has a long history as a center of commercial shipping. Fur traders from the upper Midwest used Chicago as the distribution point for their products, as did Midwestern farmers and lumber producers shipping their products east. With the creation of the Illinois and Michigan canal in 1848, creating an unbroken inland waterway from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, shipping in Chicago expanded, even as the emerging railroad industry was eclipsing the era of canals. Port activities remained centered on the Chicago River until well into the 20th Century. In 1909, the City's Harbor and Waterways Commission offered a plan to construct several piers, leading to the construction of Navy Pier. Four years later, in 1913, the General Assembly passed legislation enabling the City to acquire, develop, and own and operate port facilities within the city limits.
The modern history of the Port of Chicago began in 1921, when the State Legislature passed the Lake Calumet Harbor Act authorizing the City to build a deep water port at Lake Calumet. Late that year, the City adopted the Van Vlissingen plan, which remains the Port's basic framework for commercial shipping and industrial development. Regularly scheduled overseas shipping service was established in 1935 and in 1941 the Chicago Plan Commission published an industrial development plan for the Lake Calumet area. Five years later, Congress authorized the Calumet-Sag Project to facilitate barge traffic between Lake Michigan and the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers.
In 1951, the General Assembly created the Chicago Regional Port District to oversee harbor and port development. A year later, the State Legislature established the District as an independent municipal corporation with title to approximately 1500 acres of marshland at Lake Calumet. A plan released in 1953 called for construction of a turning basis, docks grain elevators, and public terminals and named the Senator Dan Doughty Harbor with the goal of completing construction by the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1958. The Port opened with great fanfare in 1958, well before the Seaway was officially dedicated on June 26, 1959. In 1960, in exchange for a long-term lease, Union Tank Car created an enlarged deep water turning basin and additional slips along the east side of Lake Calumet and eventually built 91 liquid storage tanks with a combined capacity of 800,000 barrels. In 1972, Navy Pier officially ended commercial shipping. In 1978, the Port District acquired 190 acres at the mouth of the Calumet River, built two new terminals sheds and rechristened the site "Iroquois Landing," giving the district a second major waterfront site for future development.
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