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at the field. The airport is easily accessible by motor vehicles from Maryland State Highway No. 170.

Domestic and foreign passenger aircraft of most of the eastern major airlines make scheduled stops at the field; air freight and air cargo carriers, as well as several unscheduled and seasonal feeder lines also make this airport a point of call.

Several other airfields in the surrounding area, of lesser size and relative commercial importance, serve private and military needs. A brief description of these is as follows:

Harbor Field, a municipal airport, is located about 6 miles southeast of the business section of the city. This airfield consists of approximately 370 acres and has runways, of which only two are now in operation. The field and runways have modern lighting devices; repair, fueling, and storage services are also available. Although regularly scheduled airlines do not call at Harbor Field, it is used most actively for training purposes and for local flights by private planes. In addition to civilian use, this field accommodates military units of the National Guard and the Naval Air Reserve.

Martin Airfield is a private field located about 10 miles east of the city of Baltimore. It has landing strips, the longest of which is 7,100 feet and is suitable for large type planes. Its runways are flood lighted, operating only on prior request. This field is primarily used as a testing ground by a large airplane manufacturing company.

Rutherford Field is a small commercial field located about 6 miles northnorthwest of Baltimore. Its two runways are suitable for small aircraft only.

Eastern Airfield is a commercial field about 11 miles east of the city. It has two operating runways, the longest of which is 2,100 feet. Storage, minor aircraft and minor engine repairs, and several octane ratings of fuel are available.

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The city of Baltimore is located on the Patapsco River approximately

12 miles from the Chesapeake Bay and 150 nautical miles north of the Chesapeake Capes in latitude 39 degrees 17 minutes north and longitude 76 degrees 37 min

utes west.

Baltimore, because of its excellent geographical location, offers the shortest rail or motor truck haul to and from the principal producing and consuming centers in the inland east and the midwest. This distance advantage is reflected in lower freight rates to and from Baltimore on export and import movements than prevail with respect to the competing ports of New York, Philadelphia, or Boston. The inland position of the port permits the ocean carrier to load or discharge cargo 50 to 150 miles closer to the producing and consuming centers of the inland east and the midwest than at other North Atlantic ports.

While a large portion of the export and import commerce of the port of Baltimore originates in or is destined to plants in or closely adjacent to the metropolitan area of Baltimore, much of the traffic using the port either originates in or is consigned to the great manufacturing and agricultural centers of the inland east and the midwest. The port serves heavy manufacturing districts east of the Mississippi River and the vast agricultural regions beyond, as well as the many important centers in the Great Lakes area, the lower Ohio Valley and wide sections of the country in the central south.

Baltimore's contiguous territory, that area where the port provides lower or equal freight rates than offered to other North Atlantic ports, is larger in extent than that of the ports of Philadelphia, New York, or Boston. This huge highly industrial and agricultural portion of the country served

most economically through the port of Baltimore includes a considerable portion of Trunk Line Territory (area generally east of Pittsburgh, excluding New England) and all of Central Freight Association (that area bounded roughly on the east by a line drawn from Buffalo, N. Y., through Pittsburgh, Pa., to Kenova, West Virginia; on the south by the Ohio River; on the west by the Mississippi River and the north by the Great Lakes). While the major portion of Baltimore's export and import cargo originates in or is destined for points within this contiguous territory, the port also receives substantial freight from practically the entire area of the United States, with the exception of the southwestern states. During periods of normal commercial shipping some 42 states and the District of Columbia as well as Canada contribute to the movement of export traffic through the port, while more than 34 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada receive import freight through Baltimore.

Baltimore's primary wholesale territory embraces a productive region of more than 20,000 square miles, including the State of Maryland, the District of Columbia, and parts of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. Its secondary trading area extends along the Atlantic Seaboard from Maine to Florida and includes portions of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio. In certain highly specialized lines, however, the distribution pattern is nationwide in scope.

As the metropolis of the State of Maryland, Baltimore is an important factor in its economic structure. The Baltimore metropolitan area had a 1950 population of 1,337,373 and its population increase of 23.5 percent over 1940 was one of the highest among the country's metropolitan areas having a population of more than a million. It is estimated that some 40,000 of these persons are directly employed in port work while many thousands of others gain indirect support. Representing a $2.3 billion consuming market, the metropolitan area is responsible for upwards of 86 percent of Maryland's wholesale volume and for

nearly 62 percent of its retail trade. In addition, it has about 60 percent of the civilian labor force, 75 percent of the number of manufacturing employees, some 72 percent of all deposits in commercial banks and mutual savings banks, and 62.5 percent of the property assessment for state taxation.

Long one of the principal ports of the world for the handling of bulk commodities, Baltimore over the years has developed specialized facilities to permit loading and unloading of bulk freight in the most efficient and economical manner. Among the major commodities in this category handled in volume at Baltimore are metallic ores, grain, coal, chemicals, fertilizer, petroleum, gypsum rock and liquid latex. This heavy concentration of bulk commodities at Baltimore is primarily the result of two factors; the lower inland freight rates to and from Baltimore and consuming and originating points in the interior of the country; and the readiness of Baltimore port operators to speedily provide the most efficient and modern loading and unloading facilities for the movement of these freight items.

Public ore unloading piers are operated by each of the four railroads serving the port of Baltimore. Frequently, these railroad ore piers are engaged in unloading ores for the Sparrows Point plant of the Bethlehem Steel Company and for interior mills of that company, but an increasing volume of the ores handled over these railroad piers is destined for the consuming blast furnaces of the Pittsburgh vicinity, the Ohio Valley, the Youngstown-Cleveland area, and the Great Lakes steel centers.

Grain exportation through the port of Baltimore has increased during recent years. Grain originating throughout the midwest and Canada is now routed through the port to take advantage of the unexcelled facilities, the lower inland freight rates and the efficient handling at the port of Baltimore. Baltimore is one of the principal ports of the country for the importation

of bananas. More than 4,000,000 bunches of the fruit are received here annually from points in Central and South America and the West Indies. Large quantities of these importations are delivered directly to motor trucks at the terminal for local distribution and shipment to points in Maryland and adjoining states, including the District of Columbia. Other cargoes are unloaded

directly from vessels into refrigerated railroad cars alongside for movement to Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and other eastern and midwestern states and Canada.

The port is one of the most important fertilizer manufacturing and shipping points in the country and is visited each year by a large number of vessels carrying full cargoes of fertilizer ingredients from various points in the United States and foreign countries. Twelve large fertilizer and chemical factories are located directly on the Baltimore waterfront, and there are a number of others at more inland points in the city. These waterfront plants are distributed generally throughout the harbor, and a number of them are equipped with special handling equipment for unloading vessels which berth directly at their piers. Outbound shipments from the waterside plants of finished products that require water transportation are normally moved by rail or barges and lighters to the general cargo piers, although vessels occasionally load at piers maintained by the fertilizer companies.

Located in close proximity to some of the richest coal fields of the United States, Baltimore has long served as one of the major ports for the export of coal to points throughout the world. The trunk line railroads serving the port pass through or tap the rich bituminous coal fields of western Maryland, West Virginia, and western Pennsylvania. Coal originating in these areas is especially well suited for steaming purposes, locomotive use, industrial purposes, and power generation.

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