Ingram Barge Company
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Ingram Barge Company is a barge company based in Nashville, Tennessee, United States.
According to the company website, Ingram operates nearly 4,000 barges with a fleet of over 100 linehaul vessels. The company operates on the Mississippi River, Ohio River, Cumberland River, Tennessee River, Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, Kanawha River, Illinois River, and the Monongahela River. In 1994 Forbes Magazine listed Ingram as the 14th largest privately held company in the United States. Ingram Barge is part of the Ingram Marine Group, in turn part of Ingram Industries.
[edit] History
Ingram barge was founded in 1946 by Orrin Henry Ingram, originally mostly shipping petroleum for Ingram Industries.
In the 1960s Ingram diversified into hauling dry cargo as well.
Erskine Bronson Ingram inherited the company from his father Henry, and ran it until his death in 1995; since then Orrin H. Ingram III has been the President and CEO.
The most notorious Ingram barge is ING 4727, which landed in what had been a residential neighborhood of the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina. It has been suggested that the ING 4727 was responsible for the major breach in the Industrial Canal from not being properly secured before the storm. The ING 4727 was under charter by Lafarge North America at the time of the hurricane and was subsequently their responsibility to secure the barge.
