In 1885 the Pennsylvania Fish Commission received a $5000 appropriation to construct Erie’s first fish hatchery. It was constructed on the southeastern corner of West 2nd and Sassafras streets. The lot was 80’ X 80’ and the building was a compact 30’ X 50’ design that accommodated five tables of hatching jars with an adjacent office on the first floor. The second floor housed the sleeping and living quarters, as well as a tank room with a tank which had a capacity of 1,200 gallons of water. By 1886 the facility produced 14,625,000 whitefish fry. The property also contained two rearing ponds, allowing the fry to achieve some growth before their stocking. Water to the Erie hatchery was provided free of charge by the Erie Waterworks for the first two years. The purpose of the hatchery was to support local commercial fishing, and the fishermen supported the hatchery by purchasing commercial fishing licenses.
Legislation was enacted in 1901 making it mandatory to purchase a license to engage in commercial fishing. In 1903 the cost of operating the Erie hatchery was $3000 a year, license fees were collected, up to $2000 a year, making the operation nearly self-sustaining. Majority of the eggs and roe for the hatchery operation were obtained locally by hatchery crews operating off of the Pennsylvania Fish Commission’s boat the Commodore Perry as well as from other hatchery operations in Ohio, Ontario and Michigan. In later years, Erie’s hatchery workers accompanied commercial fishermen on their boats and obtained eggs and spawn from harvested fish.
While the most important species were raised naturally at the local hatchery: whitefish, herring and yellow pike, Erie’s hatchery was the first to artificially propagate blue pike. In 1887 budgetary constraints led to the closure of the hatchery, but the operation returned in 1889 with the combined number of whitefish, blue and yellow pike, and perch stocked at 63 million hatchlings.
Erie's Second Hatchery
By 1914 Erie’s first hatchery outgrew its physical quarters and the Pennsylvania Fish Commission approved the construction of a new hatchery. Under the supervision of the hatchery’s superintendent, Philip Hartman, the new hatchery was constructed on the northwest corner of the Waterworks Park, at the foot of Chestnut Street. It was a 60’ x 80’ two story brick, sandstone and concrete building furnished with electricity and heated provided by the hatchery’s steam boilers and generators. The first floor of the building housed batteries of hatching jars and 13 fry tanks. The interior was well lit by abundant windows and electric lights at night. The second floor was a mezzanine that surrounded the hatching floor. This area provided a visitor's gallery that included large aquariums that displayed the many different of species fish that inhabited Lake Erie at the time. The ceiling consisted of skylights that provided even more light. It was built to conform with and match the architecture of the Waterworks buildings that was also on the property.
Part of the impetus for the closure and relocation of the first hatchery was a 1912 water-borne Typhus epidemic, which ultimately motivated the chlorination of Erie’s municipal water. This made it imperative to relocate the hatchery to the waterfront where untreated bay water could be accessed.
The following excerpt, from the 1914 edition of the Pennsylvania Fish Commission annual report, describes the feeling of necessity for the continued maintenance of an Erie hatchery:
While Pennsylvania has only forty miles of shoreline of Lake Erie, the fishermen of Erie have millions of dollars invested in the fish business. They set hundreds of miles of nets every day, and have made Erie the largest fresh water market in the world. This constant fishing would long since have depleted the lake and fishing would have become a lost art.
The state hatchery at the foot of Chestnut Street continued operation throughout the 1950s; through the lost of several species of fish from a lake devastated by pollution and over fishing. The hatchery finally closed its doors in the 1960s in favor of other more modern facilities. The hatchery building is in use today as the headquarters of Erie’s Water Authority.
In 1985 a new hatchery was constructed and is now operated by the S.O.N.S. (Save Our Native Species) of Lake Erie.
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| Erie's first fish hatchery, West 2nd and Sassafras Streets (1885) |
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| The interior of Erie's first fish hatchery, West 2nd and Sassafras Streets. |
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| Erie's second fish hatchery, Foot of Chestnut Street (1914) |
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Erie's second fish hatchery, Foot of Chestnut Street.
The Mezzanine floor showing aquariums that contain native Lake Erie fish. |
