Kristen’s visit to her grandfather’s elevator in Blencoe, Iowa

Story and photos by Kristen Osborn Cart

When I was out to Nebraska with the kids to see my Mom and Dad in 2011, we took the long way home to Illinois and stopped at Blencoe, Iowa, to see the grain elevator.

Dad helped to build it with Grandpa and Mayer-Osborn Company in the summer of 1954, just as he was starting his last year of college.

Blencoe is a tiny Monona County town of about 200 people. It’s just off Interstate 29, halfway between Council Bluffs and Sioux City.

In March of 1954 Mayer-Osborn won the contract from Blencoe Co-operative Company, worth $153,000, to build the 259,000-bushel facility. It featured a stepped, rounded headhouse.

Dad and his brother Dick laid the rebar during the concrete pour as the elevator went up. Dad had to go back to school before construction was finished because football practice was getting under way.

On my visit, I stopped at the office, where they had a notebook with the fifty-year history of the cooperative. They were proud of their elevators at Blencoe, and the folks there showed me around.

This elevator is very similar to the elevator Grandpa built in McCook, Nebraska.

Mysteries surround the origin of Mayer-Osborn Company and its first elevator (ourgrandfathersgrainelevators.com)

2 comments on “Kristen’s visit to her grandfather’s elevator in Blencoe, Iowa”

Diane Osborn Bell says:

February 17, 2012 at 10:23 pm

I am Kristen’s cousin Diane Osborn Bell. Our Dads are brothers. While they were working on the Blencoe, Iowa elevator my parents met. My Mom was working in Blencoe and she and my Dad met at the cafe where they both ate lunch.