It shall be the misson of the Port of oswego authority to promote ,develop and efficiently operate port facilities with the view to the increase and efficiency of all such facilities and the furtherance of commerce and industries, environmental protection, aesthetics, health, welfare and safety, recreational opportunities and historical appreciation in the district.

The City of Oswego has been a strategic port in the history of North America since the time of the War of 1812 and is proud of its rich heritage. The Port of Oswego was known as a shipbuilding port before the turn of the century, and many woodcuts and lithographs of the period illustrate the harbor populated with the tall masts of schooners and sailing ships. A number of historic buildings remaining along the river today provided services to the shipbuilding industry in the early days.

Late in the nineteenth century and in the early part of the twentieth century, salt shipments from Syracuse were transported west through Oswego to the Welland Canal and Lake Erie. With the opening of the American west, the grain trade was born; schooners brought wheat shipments for the flour mills that lined Oswego's two hydraulic canals and mountains of corn for a major starch factory. The timber trade was also important during this period and, at one point in the 1870s, Oswego was the largest lumber port in the United States.