Living on the NW side I am not familar with the the status of Great Lake shipping and the Port of Chicago. I remember driving in from the south after a driving vacation and seeing huge grain silos. Do we still ship or receive any grain by ship? What types of ships still come into Chicago?

Most of what comes in the Port of Chicago now is steel, not grain. Most grain is exported down the Mississippi River by barge and loaded on ocean going vessels at New Orleans. There are only a handful of foriegn arrivals at the Port of Chicago today.