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Ashtabula Information
Ashtabula is a city in Ashtabula County, Ohio, and the center of the Ashtabula
Metropolitan Statistical Area (as defined by the United States Census Bureau in
2003). A major location on the Underground Railroad in the middle 19th century,
the city today is a major coal port on Lake Erie at the mouth of the Ashtabula
River northeast of Cleveland. The name Ashtabula means "river of many fish" in
the Iroquois language. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of
20,962.
Trivially, the city was mentioned by Bob Dylan in his 1975 song "You're Going to
Make Me Lonesome When You Go" in the line I'll look for you in old Honolulu, San
Francisco, Ashtabula. The poet Carl Sandburg wrote a poem titled "Crossing Ohio
when Poppies Bloom in Ashtabula." There is also a fictional novel called "The
King from Ashtabula" by Vern Sneider, published in 1960.
Ashtabula hosts an annual Blessing of the Fleet Celebration, usually in late
May or early June. As part of the celebration, a procession and prayer service
is held at Ashtabula Harbor.
The Ashtabula Harbor is a mysterious beauty; it contains The Dry Dock and
Brenner's, which are popular drinking establishments for alienated intellectuals
and artists, unemployed steelworkers, coal shippers, fishermen out on their
luck, and grateful people just having another day in a place most would never
dare enter for fear of getting lost and forgotten forever. But we like it most
of the time.
Ashtabula was founded in 1803, later incorporated in 1891. The city contains
several former stops on the Underground Railroad which was used to convey
African-American slaves to freedom in Canada in the years before the American
Civil War. Among the stops is Hubbard House, one of the handful of termination
points. Ex-slaves would reside in a basement of the house adjacent to the lake
and then leave on the next safe boat to Canada, gaining their freedom once they
arrived in Ontario. Its harbor has been a large ore and coal port since the end
of the 19th century and continues to be to some extent with a long coal ramp
draping across the horizon in the current harbor and the ore shipments unloaded
from lakers that is sent down to the steel mills of Pennsylvania.
Many newcomers to Ashtabula in the late 19th century and early 20th century were
immigrants from Finland, Sweden, and Italy. Ethnic rivalries among these groups
were once a major influence on daily life in Ashtabula. A substantial percentage
of the current residents are descended from those immigrants. The population in
the City of Ashtabula grew steadily until 1970, since when it has been declining
just as steadily.
The 1900s saw great changes in Ashtabula. Its access to Lake Erie and nearly 30
miles of shoreline helped position Ashtabula as a major shipping and commercial
center.
During the 1950s, the area experienced growth with its expanding chemical
industry and increasing harbor activity, making Ashtabula one of the most
important port cities of the Great Lakes. Interesting historical industries in
the area included a Rockwell International plant on Route 20 on the western side
of Ashtabula that manufactured brakes for the Space Shuttle program as well as
the extrusion of depleted and enriched uranium at the Reactive Metals Extrusion
plant on East 21st street, prompting FEMA to, as recently as 1990 (the year the
plant ceased operations), place Ashtabula on its list of expected primary
nuclear targets for the Soviet Union.
Ashtabula Harbor hosts an annual Blessing of the Fleet community festival. The
origin of the Blessing of the Fleet can be traced to Portuguese and Irish
fisherman and tugmen who settled in Ashtabula. Sometime in the 1930's, the
Blessing of the Fleet was a small, almost private affair in early April
conducted by a few tugmen, their parish priest, and an acolyte. By 1950, it had
become a public ceremony under the auspices of Mother of Sorrows parish. In
1974, the Blessing of the Fleet became a community affair involving all of
Ashtabula's religious and harbor community. Today the Blessing is held annually,
usually in late May. The Coast Guard Station and the Harbor Museum and other
sites have been established to preserve Ashtabula's maritime heritage.