When Capt. Paul C. LaMarre III was hired by the Monroe Port Commission in 2012, he inherited a “pile of dirt” and took on the task of resurrecting a port.
In the years that followed, Monroe rapidly increased tonnage figures and re-established itself as an international port. Infrastructure punctuates potential, and LaMarre has led the charge to secure over $30 million in funding that will completely transform the Port of Monroe.
But Monroe wasn’t always a pile of dirt, and LaMarre was not the first person to believe that the small port south of Detroit could be something more.
Enter Max Myron McCray.
McCray was born on September 17, 1920 in the tiny farm town of Morristown, Indiana. He graduated from the U. S. Merchant Marine Academy in 1944 and was recognized as a distinguished alumnus in 1960.
During World War II he served in port-related roles, receiving shipments for Allied forces in Europe. By the late 1960s, McCray had become the executive director of the Detroit Port Commission. He was a maritime leader, a fixture on the Detroit waterfront, but chose to pursue a different path.
In January 1971, McCray accepted appointment as the first full-time Executive Director at the Port of Monroe and began his tenure in August of that year.
His new position leading Monroe came at a time when other Great Lakes states were looking at different methods to finance port improvements, a conversation from which Michigan was largely absent.
McCray’s maritime knowledge and leadership transcended Monroe, as he brought together 22 representatives of Michigan’s ports in Lansing for a meeting, in which there were calls to develop a statewide plan for port and harbor development.
A Port Development program was eventually established, and the Port of Monroe was the first recipient. In 1975, the Port received $37,500 to develop an economic feasibility study for future use of the harbor. The Monroe Port Commission matched the grant funds for a total of $75,000.
In March 1975, the Port’s engineering consultants Johnson & Anderson published the completed study, which primarily focused on the development of a new deepwater harbor at Monroe.
Pre-study estimates indicated over 6 million tons would be required to reach the necessary benefit cost score. McCray personally contacted more than 300 shipping partners and prospective port users while the Port was undertaking the study, trying to get commitments that would boost Monroe’s tonnage figures. McCray drafted all his own letters – imagine that level of correspondence today by email.
The study produced an onshore scheme to serve the immediate needs of industry during the harbor improvement project, an offshore scheme to utilize a diked containment facility for expanded port operations with Lake Erie frontage, and an offshore island scheme (which held the highest benefit-to-cost ratios) as an alternate plan.
Regardless of the development method selected, it was clear that the value of Monroe as a port could only be achieved by obtaining deepwater access, allowing a true comparison to other ports. With McCray’s leadership and advocacy from Representative John Dingell, several plans for large-scale dredging at the Port were presented. Dredging would have to involve the U. S. Army Corps. of Engineers.
The deepening project and future variations consisted of widening and deepening the shipping channel, constructing a new turning basin for thousand-footers, building a 190-acre confined disposal facility (CDF), and creating a protected 700-acre marsh.
In 1986, President Reagan signed the Water Resources Conservation Development and Infrastructure Improvement and Rehabilitation Act of 1985. The non-federal cost share was $86.5 million for the $114 million project. A number of Michigan projects and studies were eliminated in the bill, while others like Monroe were partially funded.
The cost sharing rules ensured the death of Monroe’s dredging dream- there was no way that amount of funding could be sourced locally. McCray celebrated victories elsewhere, playing a key role in luring the North Star Steel Corp. to build its new electric arc mill in Monroe, a facility that continues to benefit the Port logistics complex today as part of Gerdau.
In 1980-81, McCray was honored by the Propellor Club of Detroit as the “Mayor of the Waterfront,” joining esteemed names such as Troy Browning, Frank Becker, and Sparkman Foster.
McCray retired as executive director on December 31, 1982. The Port Commission did not hire a replacement. Marine activity had declined and McCray was kept on as a consultant. On January 19, 1984, the Port Commission terminated McCray’s contract, citing that there was not enough business to even maintain him on a monthly basis. McCray died on 15 October 1987, at sixty‑seven.
For twenty-eight years the Port of Monroe had no director. The Monroe Port Commission was content to wait for prospective customers to inquire about usage of the port. In the 1990s and early 2000s, all the time, resources, and energy at the Port of Monroe went towards resolving environmental issues. The Port was dealing with the remediation of a few hundred acres of contaminated land.
It wasn’t until 2012 that the Monroe Port Commission, with a different vision, filled the empty office by hiring thirty‑four‑year‑old LaMarre from the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority.
If you compare McCray and LaMarre, it is evident that the leader at the Port of Monroe is also a Great Lakes leader. Both fought for a state-level grant program to fund port projects, and both proved to be creative when funding sources weren’t reliable. McCray believed in the Port of Monroe when no one else did, sowing the seeds of a renaissance that he would not live to see. But that’s the point of a Port, to keep it going, and in doing so, McCray fulfilled his role.
