Villagers in Churdan, Iowa marveled that the new concrete elevator going up in the spring of 1949 would be even taller than the water tower.
Work on the single-leg 102,000-bushel structure started on Monday, May 23. It was estimated the continuous pour would be finished in two weeks, by Monday June 6.
Tillotson Construction Co. won the contract to build the elevator for Farmers Cooperative Elevator Co. of Churdan. The village in Greene County, located in west-central Iowa, had a population of about 600 people. The venerable co-op dated from 1912, according to available records.
The Churdan Plan consisted of four tanks measuring 14.5 feet in diameter and reaching 100 feet in height. With dimensions of 17 x 34 x 22, the curved cupola would definitively crown the elevator. This element was labeled on two sides with “Farmers Co-Op Elevator” in black letters.
Photo from the Jefferson (Iowa) Herald, June 2, 1949
Tillotson used the Churdan plan for at least six additional country elevators between 1949 and 1952
Kristen Cart visited Churdan in 2014 and created a post (link here) with all dimensions and specifications. She noted:
“It is immediately obvious that the old Tillotson structure has been updated at some time in the past with a leg that extends above the headhouse, thereby keeping the machinery most prone to overheating far from accumulations of grain dust.”
A gallery of her photos is seen below.
A Tillotson crew returned in 1955 to build 198,960-bushel storage annex. A follow-up post will include details of this project.
Quad States arrived in 1969 to add another elevator, this one with a stepped headhouse.
Expansion of Farmers Cooperative Association grain storage at Boyden, Iowa culminated with a 246,870-bushel single-leg concrete elevator in 1955.
This came after a series of moves by the co-op on a timeline that’s hard to pin down. One June 8, 1950, Henry De Groot, secretary, placed this ad in the Boyden Reporter:
“The Board of Directors and the help wish to thank the stockholders for the wonderful support received on the subscription of preferred stock for the new Elevator. The goal of $90,000 was reached before Saturday evening of June 3. The Board of Directors will do everything in their power to have the construction completed before government delivery begins. Thank you again for your very fine support.”
Mr. De Groot likely refers to the building for flat storage or milling, as seen in the ad, below, which appeared in the Reporter on Nov. 9, 1950.
There were also also four cylindrical tanks with a rectangular cupola. Whatever the chronology and purpose of this collection of structures, there was still insufficient capacity at Boyden until Tillotson Construction Co. came along in 1955, as we find in the company records.
Alas, I find no mention of the new elevator in the newspaper.
The Tillotson elevator had eight tanks measuring 18 feet in diameter and reaching 117 feet in height. Here are other dimensions and capacities:
Main slab 64.5 x 77.5 feet, 4,856 square feet (Tillotson’s measurement) or 4,998.75 (my measure)
2,343 cubic yards of reinforced concrete, 57 cubic yards plain concrete for hopper
121.03 tons of steel
13,108 tons gross weight loaded
Pit depth 15.0 feet
The construction record has an unusual number of notes about the job, which I interpret to my best ability.
The first note indicates there was a two-foot additional slab projection and three inches added to the thickness, which consumed 78 cubic yards of concrete.
A second note refers to 17.0 cubic yards for a “saucer,” which I can’t explain. An elaboration mentions “aeration tubes” and “previous hot spot.”
There was an outside basement door. This well-featured elevator also had a cleaner floor. Yet another note says “Split Bins 13 & 14, 24 cu. yd., 6 bin.” There was a 22-inch pad under the boot pit and 15-inch pad under (each?) wing pit. A final reference is to an “outside dust house.”
The Google Street View photos shows the 71-year-old elevator still in the thick of things on behalf of Boyden farmers.
While I learned no more about construction of the Boyden concrete elevator, nor its social history, I did pick up one item from Oct. 13, 1955 that may be of interest. Richard Burggraaf, a Boyden farmer, and his Holstein cow named Burg Ormsby Veeman Segis Gay, achieved a one-year production record of 16,563 pounds of milk with 657 pounds of butterfat. The Holstein-Friesian Association of America certified the record after Iowa State College supervised the weighing and testing.
It’s also of significance that in October of 1957, the seventh grade class visited Burggraaf’s home, and he showed them his stamp collection.
Searching archives for news of elevator construction leads one to some interesting items and fills the mind and heart with nostalgia.
A comic strip, for instance, or a newspaper ad had a way of saying more than its creator may have suspected. And the news items evoke richer meanings
For example, on Aug. 11, 1960, The Boyden Reporter of Boyden, Iowa looked back to the same date at the turn of the century and found some automotive and elevator news.
“An automobile was a street attraction here for a few minutes this morning. It was from Sioux Falls, So. Dak. Nic Knewell and his gang of elevator boys expect to go to Minnesota next Monday where they will erect a big elevator on one of the new lines of railroad in southwestern Minnesota.”
Editors and publishers Marion J. Kempers and Charles G. Sawyer also looked back to August 5, 1910:
“Jake Eppinga has moved his family to Perkins and is occupying the Schouten property. Jake is manager of the Thorpe elevator. While working on the Betts Elevator yesterday morning the scaffolding upon which Paul Rehm and Emmet Wintermantle were working gave way and both fell some ten or twelve feet. Emmet escaped, but Paul was not so fortunate, as he struck his head on the edge of a barrel and cut a severe gash over one of his eyes.”
These items hold a significant interest from the traditional culture and values represented and the general optimism they embody. Even the lively graphic design strikes a note.
Small Midwestern towns in the midcentury period seem now like perfect gems on the lost bracelet of a bygone era.
A windy night of calamity in the summer of 1958 claimed the life of James George Russell.
As foreman of the overnight crew that started work on Friday, July 25, Jim rode the slip and was measuring the progress of the 250,000-bushel elevator that Tillotson Construction Co. had undertaken at Murphy, six miles west of Aurora, Nebr.
The wind caught Jim’s measuring tape, which was made of steel, and blew it into a 2.200-volt power line. The shock knocked him off the formwork, and the young man fell sixty feet. He died early Saturday morning, July 26, at the Aurora hospital.
Born in 1936, Jim was fourteen years old at the time of the 1950 census. By then, William and Alma Russell had eight sons. The entire family was involved in elevator construction.
“We lived in Vermillion, South Dakota, but that summer I was in Aurora,” Dennis Russell recalled in a 2013 interview. “We were staying with Dad. I remember Mom taking that phone call.”
So many mothers had received similar calls during wartime. Now, thirteen years after the war’s end, Alma had lost her son to this accident.
Jim’s father William, born in 1900, had done construction of ammunition depots during World War Two. Known as Bill, he went to work for Tillotson Construction Co. after the War.
“He worked for them a long time,” Dennis said. “He left Tillotson’s and started Mid-States Construction Company with Gordon Erickson and another individual. I think he was a partner for a brief period and then ran jobs for them as a superintendent until his retirement.”
Bill retired in 1972, but he “always had fond memories working for Tillotson, I know that,” Dennis said. “I remember he was awful fond of Mary.”
First load of grain being dumped at Alta, Iowa. Elevator employee, left, Bill Russell, right. Worker, left, and Bill Russell, right Bill Russell, left, unknown man on right Tillotson Construction’s Bill Russell, far right, instructs (from left) Stanley Kittleson, Adrian Dahl, and Merlynn Nelson on operation of the elevator’s distributor controls.
Dennis recalled that, at his death, Jim had one year of law school remaining at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. He was married to Shirley, a nurse.
Our search turns up this obituary:
“When James George Russell was born in 1936, in South Dakota, his father, William Ruston Russell, Jr., was 36 and his mother, Alma O. Nelson, was 26. He lived in United States in 1949 and Vermillion, Clay County, South Dakota in 1950. He died on 26 July 1958, at the age of 22, and was buried in Vermillion.”
Jim enrolled in the university’s ROTC program. He and other South Dakota men received six weeks of training at Fort Riley, Kan. The training included weapons, tactics, and bivouac.
Ten months later, in May of 1957, he was commissioned second lieutenant in the U.S. Army’s Transportation Corps. We have no information on active-duty service.
The aerial photo at the top of this post was provided by Kurtis Glinn. It shows Tillotson Construction’s Murphy elevator, probably in the early 1960s. Note the ground storage of grain sorghum on the right.
“I was the manager at the Aurora Cooperative Murphy location in central Nebraska,” Kurt Glinn said. “I was told from the old timers in the area that were around when the elevator was built in the late-’50s [that an] accident happened there, shutting down construction for about a week.”
Our search turns up no photo of Jim Russell but we hope still to find one to complete a proper tribute to this man of obvious diligence and high character whose promise was cut short by a freak accident.
In the first part of 1955, Bud Lane, manager of the Farmers Cooperative Elevator Co. in Boxholm, Iowa, told Farmers’ Elevator Guide that construction of the concrete elevator would be finished by July 15. It would join a complex of three wood elevators and a mill.
Tillotson Construction Co. of Omaha built the concrete elevator on the same plan used in 1950 at Drummond, Okla.
Boxholm, a central-Iowa town of Swedish immigrants, was served from 1906 by the Newton and Northwestern Railroad, which later became the Fort Dodge, Des Moines & Southern. Origins of the grain-storage complex dated back to the early 1900s.
The Boxholm elevator had eight tanks measuring 15.5 feet in diameter and rising to 120 feet in height. All other specs are listed in our earlier post that includes original photos by Kristen.
Frank Nine worked on the Boxholm job and shared these recollections: “Early 1955 we started the job in Boxholm, Iowa, where I met Jim Sheets, and we became friends. I worked the master jacks and run jack crew. Later on, finished cement with Jim–among other jobs as needed. This is where George, Jay, and an old welder, Jesse, became friends.”
Pages 10 and 10A of the Tillotson Construction record show the boom in construction of reinforced-concrete grain elevators was winding down for the Omaha company in 1955. Tillotson continued to build new elevators until at least 1958, but the number of jobs diminished. We lack further proprietary records of the work.
Led by Reginald O. and Mary V. Tillotson, the company produced 1,626,770 bushels of new capacity in ’55 with country-elevator jobs in Nebraska and Iowa.
Here’s the complete list of eight locations: Waverly, Nebr.; Boyden, Churdan, Boxholm, Thornton, Palm Grove, Vail, and Dallas Center, Iowa. A view of Dallas Center is seen at the top of this post.
The largest jobs were at Thornton and Dallas Center, where 252,000-bushel single-leg elevators were completed.
Smallest was a 126,140-bushel storage annex at Palm Grove, an unincorporated town in Clay Township, Webster County, Iowa. The Facebook page titled Fort Dodge Iowa Memories, Stories, Photos offers a description of Palm Grove:
“Palm Grove historically served as a vital interurban station. Interurban railways were electric-powered rail lines that connected rural agricultural regions to major industrial hubs during the early 1900s. Before it became known as Palm Grove, the railway station went by the name of Crooks.
“The community maintained its own federal post office under the name Crooks Post Office, which operated from 1909 until 1914. During this era, such rural post offices were usually built inside general stores or situated directly at rail stops to sort mail arriving by train before it was distributed to local farming families.
“When the postal services consolidated and the reliance on electric interurban transit faded with the rise of automobiles, the community lost its status as an independent commercial village. It transitioned into a quiet, unincorporated farming community.”
Waverly, Nebr. in 2012, photo by Kristen Cart
Another storage annex was at Churdan, where Tillotson put up six tanks measuring 20 feet in diameter and reaching 105 feet in height for a total of 198,960 bushels of capacity. Under the headline “Churdan Elevator Co-op Buys Site,” a March 22, 1955 news item from The Jefferson Bee announced preparations.
“Churdan—The Farmers Elevator Co-op has purchased the ground and house just west of the elevator. It was owned by Mr. and Mr. Ray Stream. Mr. and Mrs. John Lundy and Barbara lived in the house. The work on the new storage space at the elevator will start about April first.”
We visited Churdan in 2014 and found an active elevator with stress cracks and an ugly appendage rising from the cupola. Quad States added a second elevator in 1969.
The Farmers’ Co-operative of Newell, Iowa needed a replacement for their wood elevator, which had burned in September of 1953. When Tillotson Construction Co. built a concrete giant for them the next spring, the need for a replacement was met.
It happened when the trend across Iowa was to increase storage.
The Farmers Grain Dealers Association reported 10.5 million bushels of new capacity were being added statewide.
In Des Moines, the state capital, a 5.0-million-bushel structure was under construction.
Twenty-five other locations from Albert City to Woodstock accounted for the other 5.25 million bushels. Among them, the largest job was at Ellsworth: a 500,000-bushel concrete elevator.
Besides Newell, Tillotson was busy in Albert City, Iowa Falls, Pocahontas, Rockwell City, Dayton, and Goldfield. With capacity of 150,000 bushels, the Newell elevator was one of the smallest projects in the state. Smaller still, two locations, Titonka and Sutherland, were building wood annexes of 75,000 and 70,000 bushels respectively.
Newell measurements and dimensions:
Built on the Manson plan with five tanks, each measuring 16 feet in diameter and reaching 120 feet in height for a capacity of 150,000 bushels, 15 bins and overflow, dust bin over driveway. A special note says bin #9 was split.
You could buy a penny box of matches in those days and get a lot for your money.
Take this case from Newell, Iowa, for instance. Three boys–two aged nine and one aged 12–spent two cents on the afternoon of September 3, 1953. With a good supply of matches, they went to Fullerton Lumber Co. to experiment. Dipping a stick into flammable liquid, they lit it. When the stick flamed up and became a torch, the boy holding it suffered a burned finger and flung it away.
The lads were spared additional injuries, but the inferno they started around 5.15 p.m. burned for six hours. The lumber yard was consumed, and with a stiff south breeze and dry conditions, flames jumped to the Farmers Co-op elevator. By 6.45 p.m., this wood elevator was declared a total loss.
Besides the force commanded by Newell fire chief Paul Wilfong, crews arrived from Fonda, Sac City, Early, Storm Lake, and Nemaha.
The fire spread to three refrigerated freight cars in a string of fifteen cars on a nearby railroad siding. The three reefers were left to burn after the rest of the string was detached and moved along the track.
Firemen succeeded in preserving the Galbraith Elevator next door and oil tanks fifty yards off.
Franklin Willadsen, manager of the Galbraith Elevator, said the flames were controlled by 11.30 p.m., although the grain smoldered overnight.
The Illinois Central estimated all damages at $500,000. A subsequent report put the losses in the range of $275,000 to $500,000.
Google Street View in 2026
Newell Construction Co. built the Farmers’ elevator in 1915–the same year the Iowa Cooperative Law (Iowa Code Chapter 497) was passed.
“It will handle all kinds of grain,” a news report said. “A feed house is also being built and will be complete in a few days, and feed and coal will be handled here. The elevator is just north of the Milwaukee coal chute and J.R. Timms, who has been assistant of the Farmers’ company at Alburnett, has been engaged for a year, and assumed charge Monday.”
The Newell Farmers Co-op decided on a reinforced-concrete elevator as a replacement and arranged with Tillotson Construction Co. to build it. The new 150,000-bushel single-leg concrete elevator was completed in 1954.
Page 8 of the Tillotson Construction Co. record documents the stretch through 1954 when the company participated in the boom for large-scale reinforced-concrete grain-storage buildings, completing eight main-house elevators and eight storage annexes.
The Omaha company led by Reginald O. Tillotson and Mary V. Tillotson produced 3,789,055 bushels of new capacity in this period. Jobs were in five states: Nebraska (1), Kansas (2), Iowa (8), Oklahoma (4), Texas (1).
Here’s the complete list of the sixteen locations: Bellwood, Nebr.; Ensign and Montezuma, Kan.; Dacoma, Orienta, Weatherford, and Lahoma, Okla.; Booker, Tex.; Newell, Iowa Falls, Albert City, Glidden, Manson, Pocahontas, Goldfield, and Rockwell City, Iowa.
Bellwood was the most ambitious storage project. Each of the ten tanks measured 20 feet in diameter and reached 130 feet in height.
The smallest commission was at Newell, Iowa, where the new 150,000-bushel elevator had five tanks measuring sixteen feet in diameter and reaching 120 feet in height.
A similar job left Manson, Iowa with a 152,000-bushel elevator, also with five tanks measuring sixteen feet in diameter and reaching 120 feet.
Bellwood, Nebr. in 2020
Bellwood, Nebr. in 2020
We have visited Bellwood, Pocahontas, and Booker and can share file photos. The dawn photo at the top of this post is from Booker in 2018.
Pocahontas aerial view
A Ford F-500 on the driveway at Dacoma, Okla. Photo by Brad Perry.
Because of the out-of-the-way locations of these country elevators, and because of the secondary importance of storage annexes, little attention or acclaim was given and it’s hard to find documentation in archived newspapers.
Inside the Booker elevatorBooker from the outsideBooker detail
Concerning the Orienta job, the Enid Morning News reported on Jan. 24, 1954:
“Work is progressing rapidly on the 300,000 bushel addition to the Major County Co-op Elevator association’s plant at Orienta, in Major county west of Enid. When [the annex is] completed sometime in March the association will have a storage capacity of 630,000 bushels, according to Ray Fuzzell, veteran manager. The addition is being constructed by the Tillotson Construction Co., of Omaha, on a cost plus basis with limit of $123,000. The association has had an elevator at Orienta since 1917. ‘We just did not have the storage capacity to take care of our local needs,’ Fuzzell said in commenting on the addition. ‘We do not expect to ship in any wheat for storage.'”
The 1954 Oklahoma wheat crop was huge. The Associated Press reported a “spectacular boom” in elevator construction, with “pounding hammers and whirring concrete mixers” as 35 to 40 co-operatives added 9 million bushels of storage capacity. Dacoma was one of seven locations in the state where quarter-million-bushel jobs were underway.
Tillotson Construction was an important constituent in this movement, a leading innovator with its own distinctive architectural style and many characteristic features.
On Oct. 3, 1954, brazen burglars with experience in high-explosives struck three important businesses in Ocheyedan, Iowa, making away with cash and checks from one, cash only from another, and nothing at all from the third.
The worst scene was at the Farmers Co-operative Elevator Association facility where Tillotson Construction Co. built the single-leg, 267,413-bushel concrete elevator in 1950.
“The burglars used either dynamite or nitroglycerine to blast open the safe door at the elevator company,” the Osceola County sheriff told The Sioux City Journal. The haul netted $600 in cash and $3,000 in checks. Authorities throughout Iowa were put on watch for check-passing.
The Sinclair station was hit and lost $136 in cash.
Burglars also entered Botsford Lumber Co. but no loss was discovered.
Photo via Facebook’s Ocheyedan: A Place We Call Home
It seems that safecrackers enjoyed a bounty year in 1954. Doc Nebergall, chief of the Iowa bureau of investigation, counted 146 such burglaries.
“I don’t know why safe jobs have increased so much in this state,” Nebergall told The Sioux City Journal the following January. “Up to a few years ago Iowa had gone seven years without a safe cracking. Then all of a sudden we started having a flock of them and they’ve been continuing ever since.”
Deserted at night, and with cash on hand to pay for grain deliveries, elevators were prime sites for burglaries. Our Grandfathers’ Grain Elevators records a 1932 strike at Exeter, Nebr., where two men stole a radio and certain other articles valued at $50.
In the Ocheyedan elevator’s case, it should have been enough for the operators to guard against grain-dust explosions up high. Being struck by a ground-level blast was a dirty piece of business.
