Van Ness completes a 30,000-bushel elevator in Cedar Bluffs, Nebr. and the party is on

by baggyparagraphs

A lovely Monday in early May of 1934 proved perfect for festivities that attended dedication of the new Farmers Union elevator in Cedar Bend, Nebr. 

After deciding in January to tear down its 48-year-old elevator and rebuild, the Farmers Union Co-Operative Association awarded the job to Van Ness Construction Co., of Omaha. A new 30,000-bushel elevator soon rose on the same site as the demolished elevator in the progressive Saunders County village. Photos by Reginald Tillotson, who worked for Van Ness along with his father Charles H. Tillotson, show the work starting in early spring before the trees budded out.

A news report explains how the dedication attracted an “immense” crowd and sparkled a festival-like atmosphere on that pleasant occasion. Events started at 12.00 noon with free ice cream, cake, and coffee for more than 600 registrants. 

“There was plenty to eat for everybody,” the New Cedar Bluffs Standard reported. 

That would be Reginald’s finger over the lens in this photo of the new elevator.

After dinner, races and contests were held for boys and girls, providing entertainment for the crowd and fun for the youngsters. Cash prizes were given out. The Midland College band traveled from nearby Fremont to play for everybody.

Mayor J. P. Jessen took the platform, welcomed the folks, and introduced lots of dignitaries. H.D. Black received special recognition as manager of the elevator, and Alex McAuley—a 17-year veteran of the company—was assistant manager. 

Next came the parade. A line of automobiles carried the officers and directors of the elevator association. A former employee of Farmers Union weighed in with the ceremonial first load of wheat to be received and stored away in the new house.

The entertainment continued as a quartet took the stage and sang old favorites. Following their numbers, a solo vocalist performed with piano accompaniment.

Other cash prizes were awarded, this time to L.A. Freeman, the association stockholder who had the largest family present. The jackpot for longest distance traveled went to Jim Broz, who made the journey from Prague, a Saunders County town 16.5 miles away by road. 

Speechifying was courtesy of Newton Gaines, of the University of Nebraska Extension service, who “as usual did a mighty fine job of it. He is an interesting and entertaining speaker.” Gaines himself was Midland College graduate devoted to the gospel of better farming and spread it with humor and philosophy in thousands of speeches.

The Cedar Bluffs day of parties ended with a free, well-attended dance at the opera house, and the next day was back to normal with the new elevator in service. The dedication day was long-remembered by the people. Even today we take away the message of an elevator’s importance within its community. Sometimes in daily life, the people came and went without even noticing it, but in fact it was the thing that held the community together.

Farmers Union decides to demolish and rebuild in 1934 at Cedar Bluffs, Nebr.

by baggyparagraphs

It was January of 1934, still the depths of the Great Depression, but optimism led the stockholders of Farmers Union Co-Operative Association, of Cedar Bluffs, Nebr., to decide the time had come to tear down and replace their old elevator. 

Organized in 1888, Farmers Union claimed to be “the oldest cooperative elevator in the United States,” according to the New Cedar Bluffs Standard weekly newspaper. There were 200 stockholders with capital stock in the total of $50,000. 

Reginald Tillotson’s neat script on the back of his photo.

At the same annual meeting, the Association announced payout of stock dividends at eight percent and patronage dividends of one percent. The newspaper remarked that “considering the times [it’s] a mighty fine showing.” 

The old elevator was to be dismantled, with as much material as possible being salvaged for re-use. The new elevator would be steel-covered. The initial report stated capacity at 80,000 bushels, which is a lot for a cribbed wooden elevator. A subsequent report put it at 30,000 bushels—a more realistic figure. 

The photo above shows the weathered main house with its peaked headhouse, and a storage annex with the upper structure enclosing the run being labeled Farmers Union Co-Op Assn. The shed on the left bears a sign saying Ash Grove Portland Cement.

A selling point on the rebuild was the prospect of local help getting employment in the construction. 

Van Ness Construction won the job, as will be seen in a follow-up post. Tillotson Construction, which evolved from Van Ness, returned to Cedar Bluffs in 1950 to build a 130,000-bushel reinforced-concrete elevator, which we visited in 2020.

A Van Ness repair job in south-central Nebraska leaves us in a state of Funk

by baggyparagraphs

It’s natural to assume the people who built elevators were well-acquainted with those who operated them, especially when they were employed by companies in Omaha. 

In 1934, how well acquainted were the employees of Van Ness Construction with the men of Crowell Elevator Co.? Was it cozy among them? 

Operating elevators in many towns, Crowell appears to have been a syndicate unto itself, but so far, we have been unable to learn much about them. 

We do know, however, that in 1934 Van Ness did a repair job for Crowell at the tiny Phelps County town of Funk, which is near Holdrege, in south-central Nebraska. 

Reginald Tillotson took photos, and on the back of one he noted, “After repair work, Crowell Elevator Co.” 

That’s the sum of our information to date, but there’s always the hope of additional revelations. 

Looking at the photos, it’s not possible to say what kind of repair work. All we can determine is that there was a modest, metal-clad elevator along the tracks—and not much elese—in Funk. 

Tillotson returns in 1941 to Alliance, Nebr. as independent contractor with a familiar client

by baggyparagraphs

Four years after their 1937 call to remedy fire loss at George Neuswanger’s elevator in Alliance, Nebr., the Tillotsons returned to that Panhandle town with the commission to build more storage and a feed mill.

The Alliance Times-Herald reported as follows:

Construction work has begun on a large warehouse and feed processing plant here by the J.H. Tillotson contracting company of Omaha for George Neuswanger of Alliance. 

We are unsure how “J.H. Tillotson contracting company” got the credit. The brothers Reginald and Joseph Tillotson formed Tillotson Construction Co. in 1938. We believe a rupture between then led to the founding of Joseph H. Tillotson, Contractor in 1948. Joe Tillotson died not long afterward in a car accident. There could be more to learn on this question, but until then we rely on existing records and previous verbal accounts.

The newspaper continued:

The building will be located just north of the Neuswanger elevator. The warehouse will be 148 feet long and 50 feet wide, and the feed processing mill will be 32 feet square. Total cost of the project has been listed at $12,000. 

According to Neuswanger, some difficulty is being experienced in the obtaining of material, and he has no idea when the building which will be of reinforced concrete construction, will be completed. At this time much of the excavation work has been completed by a dragline which has been in operation this week. 

The newspaper added these details:

Concrete mixing machinery is already in place at the site, a tool and supply shed has been erected, and some of the forms are being built. Much of the gravel which will be needed has been hauled to the site also. 

When the feed processing plant is put into operation, mixing and grinding of many types of livestock feed will be carried on here, Neuswanger said.

In part because of the large barley crop, grain storage facilities were at a premium in those months just before the United States entered World War Two. Nebraska farmers were expected to harvest 33 million bushels of grain.

While there was sufficient capacity for 55 million bushels in total, space was available for only 13.5 million.

The federal government allowed farmers seven cents per bushel towards putting up new storage silos on their farms.

Otherwise, a state official had this suggestion: “Another way to store the coming harvest is to bind and stack it. Stacking is becoming a lost art, but it is still an excellent method.” 

After fire loss, Tillotson contributed to an annex and mill in Alliance, Nebr.

by baggyparagraphs

A series of vivid photos shows work underway in 1935 as a crew undertakes the construction of a new storage annex and feed mill after fire loss at an elevator site in Alliance, Nebr. In this case, we assume the job was in the hands of Van Ness Construction Co., of Omaha, and Reginald Tillotson, employed by Van Ness along with his father Charles H. Tillotson, took the photos while working on the project. It wasn’t until 1938 that Charles H. Tillotson passed away, and Reginald and his brother Joseph formed Tillotson Construction Co.

Alliance is an important market town in Box Butte County, located in the Nebraska Panhandle. The client on this project was George Neuswanger, an oil and grain merchant.

“He first came to Alliance, after graduation from the University of Nebraska, in 1916 when he served as Box Butte County agent,” the Alliance Times-Herald would explain in a 1966 obituary.

The Times-Herald explains the construction activity in an article of July 16, 1935:

Work on a new small-grain elevator being built for George Neuswanger is in progress at the location where the Neuswanger building burned last spring at the southwest corner of the city and plans call for the new structure to be completed within a month’s time, ready to house a bumper harvest. 

About 30 men are receiving employment, erecting a cribbed elevator of wood which will be covered with galvanized metal. The project was begun three weeks ago. 

The elevator will be 150 by 30 feet and will be 60 feet high. Its capacity is to be 100,000 bushels.

Mr. Neuswanger intends to store only small grain in the building. He sees ahead a need for more space, with harvest conditions ideal and chances good for a splendid yield in this territory. 

Neuswanger’s bad luck continued in August of 1937 when a tornado missed Alliance by a mile but struck four of his hog barns on a feed lot north of town. There was no mention of what happened to the hogs.

Jobs at Geneva and Exeter, Nebr., shed light on elevator activities and a crime spree

by baggyparagraphs

Our collection of Reginald Tillotson’s early 1930s photos includes two “before” and two “after” snapshots with notes that say “Farmers Terminal Elevator, Geneva, Nebr., Repair and Ironing Job 1932.” Without photographic support, an additional note records that in the following year Van Ness Construction Co., of Omaha—which employed Reginald and his father Joseph—“Tore down two old, rebuilt one new” in the nearby Fillmore County town of Exeter. 

A search of articles in the Nebraska Signal newspaper, of Geneva, turns up little additional information about either job. One item suggests the elevator had been closed during the spring. Further elaboration is awaited. 

We did learn that by January of 1932, a pair of burglars, Louis Shallenberg and Clifford Crowder, had been arrested in Grand Island and “confessed to robbing the farmers’ elevator at Exeter and taking a radio and other articles valued at $50. They are also implicated in numerous other robberies in this and nearby counties. Shallenberg was released from the pen last summer after completing a term for robbery and Crowder recently served a jail sentence at Wilber.”

Farmers Elevator, Geneva, Nebr., 1932 “After” photos. The “Before” photos are seen at top.

In lieu of information about elevator “repair and ironing,” we present the following items from the Nebraska Signal that describe 1932 activities in Geneva. 

The annual business meeting of the Farmers elevator was held Tuesday afternoon at the I.O.O.F. temple. The meeting was called to order by the president, Henry Jensen. At the election of officers Fred Underwood was re-elected secretary and Henry Kolar and William Morgan were re-elected directors. The report showed that the company had a good business year and a ten per cent dividend was declared on shares, eight percent on gas and one-half cent on grain. About $90 of undivided profit was given to the American Legion fund. Due to the blocked condition of the roads only about forty were present. Nebraska Signal, Jan 14, 1932 

The Farmers Elevator of Geneva will open Saturday, April 30, and thereafter on Friday and Saturday each week until further notice. We will have a full line of farm seeds. Will exchange some for some good seed corn. Come and see our new machinery at used machinery prices. Sheridan Grain & Machinery Co. Nebraska Signal, Apr. 28, 1932 

Orange cane, Honeydrip and black, 50 cents per bushel. Fridays and Saturdays every week at Farmers elevator, Geneva, Neb. We buy grain Fridays and Saturdays only. Wm. Sheridan. Nebraska Signal, May 26, 1932

The Farmers Elevator will be open every day after July 1. Phone 98. Nebraska Signal, June 30, 1932

We will pay a premium for mixed wheat and oats. Also have Grim alfalfa seed at $6.50 per bushel. Farmers Elevator. Nebraska Signal Aug. 11, 1932 

The Farmers Elevator Co. at Geneva will have No. 66 Turkey Red seed wheat free from rye will exchange for other wheat reasonable. 48-1. Nebraska Signal, Aug. 24, 1932 

Van Ness and the Tillotsons step in and rebuild after fire takes out a country elevator

by baggyparagraphs

By Ronald Ahrens

It was an uneventful run through the night until the track led Burlington No. 22 to the flyspeck town of Corning in northwest Missouri. Corning wasn’t even normally a whistlestop but now, at 2.30 a.m., the locomotive’s crew released a blast to alert the sleeping Holt County community that their Farmers Grain Co. elevator was burning. 

A hell of a blaze was going by the time the fire crew arrived on scene, and they couldn’t stop the destruction. The coup de grâce occurred when the roof fell in, and by dawn on that Saturday, April 29, 1933, the elevator had collapsed and was a smoldering ruin. Authorities indicated the fire had started under the cob bin. The elevator and its contents were insured for $8,000. 

It would become a case of Van Ness Construction, from 95 miles away in Omaha, to the rescue. 

Oddly enough, on the very day before, a newspaper called The Holt County Democrat and The Craig Leader had run a substantial profile of the Farmers Grain Co. as part of a feature titled “Who’s Who in Neighboring Towns.” 

Under the management of J.D. Ahrens (no relation to the present blogger), the “well known firm” was successful for years. 

“They are a reliable firm that gives correct weights, top prices and superior service,” the profile declared. “They demand a specific standard and maintain this standard to their customers.” 

The elevator was “practically indispensable to the farming community surrounding Corning” and had even “won a place in the hearts of the farmers through their excellent service and treatment.” 

Obviously, quick replacement of the elevator would be a priority. Van Ness, which employed my great-grandfather Charles H. Tillotson and grandfather Reginald O. Tillotson, who was in his mid-twenties, came onto the scene.  

So sure of a good outcome were the principals of Farmers Grain that, on June 23, The Holt County Democrat reported one V.A. Solleder had bought a Chevrolet truck for use at the elevator. 

“Heretofore the elevator has been handicapped because of the inability to make delivery of coal, cobs and grain, also in hauling from the Farmers, their grain,” the news item said.

“The truck will be an important asset to the business.” 

Meanwhile, the Omaha crew toiled on with help from some local men who joined in. 

Only a few finishing touches remained to be completed when Farmers Elevator placed a July 14 ad in the Leader informing “all our old patrons and … friends in the Corning and Craig communities … we are ready to receive your grain.”  

Van Ness performed its part with unprecedented skill and speed. 

“It was exactly forty-eight days from the time the contractor began the work on the new building until it was ready for use,” a July 23 article reported. Farmer James Mavity arrived with the first load of wheat. 

The new elevator that was bigger than the old by some 5,000 bushels, giving a total capacity of 18,000 bushels, and work was completed at the tidy price of $7,000, which ensured the cooperative’s solvency. 

Near the end of that job, Reginald snapped the photo we see with this post, providing enduring evidence of the Tillotsons’ handiwork.  

Lone carpenter braves scaffolding, brings new elevator to completion at Shelby, Nebr. in 1934

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A lone worker adds finishing touches to an elevator in this photo dated Oct. 4, 1934 and inscribed “Shelby, Nebraska.” Shelby is today a town of 600 in Polk County, south of Columbus. The man balances on rudimentary scaffolding at the top of the structure, which we estimate to be about 55 feet high. A Ford coupe is parked on the ground below.

It is unknown whether this elevator was an all-new facility or the replacement for a damaged one. The nearest we can come to answering the question is a brief report in the Polk County News of the previous year.

“The Shelby elevators assumed a business activity on Monday (July 10, 1933) that reminded one of former days of prosperity, as we are informed that 213 loads of corn were delivered to the elevators that day, and the price paid was 47c per bushel.

“To show the difference in the price of farm products now and a little over four months ago, we reprint the markets as printed in the Sun on March 2, in comparison with the markets of today. We leave the reader to draw his own conclusions as to the cause of this improvement in the grain market. There’s a reason.”

Please see the news clip for price tables. Our interest is drawn to the phrase “Shelby elevators.” It’s impossible to say how many there were, or to account for this new elevator presumably built by Van Ness Construction, of Omaha, with Tillotson involvement.

We welcome comments from readers on wooden elevator construction methods. Another news item that came up in our search said a 20,000-bushel elevator in another Nebraska town was estimated to cost $7,000.

It would also be interesting to hear what “reason” the Polk editor had in mind about price improvements.

First look at archive of 1930s photos shows back-to-business after wooden elevator repair in North Dakota

by baggyparagraphs

The Tillotson homestead north of Omaha was sold in 2025, and as a consequence Our Grandfathers’ Grain Elevators has received a few leaves from a photo album with snapshots of 1930s jobs. Together, these pictures comprise the earliest documentation we’ve ever seen of Van Ness Construction and Tillotson activities. 

After the sudden passing of Charles H. Tillotson in 1938, his sons Reginald and Joseph built Tillotson Construction Company’s first concrete elevator, located in Goltry, Oklahoma. Prior to that, they worked for Ralston Van Ness out of Omaha. The photos we received appear to show jobs done for that company earlier in the 1930s. 

Most of the photos are inscribed on the back with a name, location, and date. 

The above photo depicts a 1933 scene at a twin-elevator complex in Norma, North Dakota. Norma is a dot on the map in Renville County northwest of Minot and twenty or so miles south of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. A note on the album page says “Rebuilt Fire Loss 1933.” 

Searching through a newspaper archive turns up no more details, so we can only look at the image and suppose the relief felt by local farmers who had limited options for grain disposition. Especially at a country location like this, a damaged elevator was an unhappy circumstance that would have required hauling grain over an extended distance. 

On a sunny day at Norma, a few motor vehicles converge at the complex with at least four horse-drawn farm wagons. It’s illuminating to see wagons still in use at that time. Their limitations surely gave farmers a sense of urgency about acquiring a motor truck.

An old pickup with wooden artillery-style wheels in the right foreground was likely a Ford. It has an emblem on the driver’s door, but we can’t determine anything more about it. 

Under close examination of the photo, the elevator tower in the distance appears to be labeled “Minnekota.” The sign on the near tower can’t be read at all. 

A number of men are going about their business, whether they’re still seated on wagon perches, standing inside a wagon, or on the ground. In the mix of trucks and cars, note the silhouette of an automobile way down the sidetrack.

Several boxcars await service. Norma is on a secondary road leading south from North Dakota Route 5, and it seems likely the rail line was a spur. This could have been part of Soo Line operations. 

We lack additional information about the event that led to the reconstruction. Newspaper pages often had stories of grain elevator fires in 1932 and 1933, with casualties in Chicago at a 200,000-bushel elevator on the river there, and with lesser tolls at smaller elevators in prairie locations. 

The Bismark Tribume reported on Aug. 24, 1933 that a 20,000-bushel Minnekota Grain Co. elevator had burned at Butte, North Dakota, to the southeast of Minot. It also claimed a 14,000-bushel carload of wheat. Butte was left with three elevators after the disaster.

We invite our readers to stay with us as we post the rest of the thirty photos in the newly obtained archive.

Newly discovered photos emerge of a 1950 blowout at a Tillotson ‘clone’ elevator in Bird City, Kansas

by baggyparagraphs

For a 2013 post, we visited the elevator at Bird City, Kan. to learn more about its provenance. Bird City (pop. 447) is in Cheyenne County, in the northwestern corner of Kansas. The county population is about 2,500.

“It has been demonstrated that the curved headhouse was a Tillotson signature,” we wrote after the site visit. “Did someone leave the Tillotson operation and branch out on his own, or were the plans sold to Vickroy-Mong?”

Later, we followed up with the story of a blowout that occurred there in 1950, not too long after the elevator was built by Vickroy-Mong Construction Co., of Salina, Kan.

Thanks to reader Steve Wilson, who grew up in St. Francis some 15 miles from Bird City, we have new views of the aftermath of that blowout, and these give a clue as to why the name Vickroy-Mong has otherwise disappeared from history.

The elevator was announced in January of 1950. The Omaha World-Herald reported as follows:

The Bird City Equity has voted to build a 250-thousand bushel storage elevator this spring. The government will assist in the finance to the extent of 80 per cent of the cost. It will also guarantee storage income for a three-year period. A drive to raise 50 thousand dollars in capital will be staged. Total cost of the elevator is estimated to be around 160 thousand dollars.

Photos courtesy of Steve Wilson

Soon after the tanks were loaded with grain, the blowout occurred. On Aug. 24, 1950, The Herndon (Kan.) Nonpareil reported: 

Approximately 15,000 bushels of the 1950 Cheyenne County wheat crop spilled out on the ground about 6 a.m. Friday when a 30′ by 8′ section of the newly constructed Bird City Equity elevator caved in. The section of wall giving way was over the loading bins on the railroad. A train was in Bird City at the time and was sent to St Francis to be turned after wheat augers brought in from the surrounding countryside had cleared a path through the grain on the tracks. More than six boxcars of wheat were loaded with the augers after the engine returned, but between 6,000 and 7,000 bushels of wheat still remained on the ground the next day, A.A. Gillispie veteran St. Francis newspaperman reported. The elevator which has a capacity of 250,000 bushels was finished shortly before harvest this year.

Photos by Gary Rich

Chalmers & Borton received the contract for the repair work. In 1958, they also won the contract for an addition of 241,000 bushels.

W. Stephen “Steve” Wilson retired as professor of mathematics at Johns Hopkins University and lives in Baltimore. His father, Charles Wm. Wilson, M.D., served the people of Cheyenne County “doing everything from glasses to babies to surgery.” And Dr. Wilson was a photography buff. Steve Wilson provides this addendum regarding the blowout:

I was only 4, or almost 4, but it was a big deal. Lots of grain elevators in that part of the country, and they don’t usually fall apart. Worth the drive to see it!

In 2009, I took my kid out to see where I was from (the year before he graduated from high school). We went out to one of the elevators in St. Francis, the county seat. This was an elevator [where] they would take us kids up to the top, and we would throw model airplanes with cherry bombs in them.

However, when my son and I started walking towards the elevator, someone ran out of the office and told us we couldn’t get close to the elevator. Homeland security rules. What a waste of resources! If a terrorist wants to blow up a grain elevator in a town of 1,500 where you still have to drive 175 miles to get to a town of 25,000, that’s not a bright idea. Spending money to prevent it is even stupider.