By Ronald Ahrens

When the 100,000-bushel, single-leg elevator went up at Helena, Okla., in 1947, it adhered to the plan first used the previous year at nearby Pond Creek. In the above photo, it is seen on the right. I don’t know who did the elevator with the rounded headhouse.

On the ’47 elevator there was a full cupola, or headhouse, and an  attached driveway. An old elevator, probably a wooden one, existed at the site, and a note indicates that cross-spouts led over to it.

This is a one-of-a-kind instance in the records of Tillotson Construction Co.

Tillotson’s pages also say that 900 cubic yards of concrete went into the job along with 39.57 tons of reinforcing steel.

The 18-inch-thick main slab covered an area of 41 x 41 square feet. Below this deck, the pit was 13 feet 3 inches deep.

Fully loaded, the elevator weighed 4,968 tons.

The drawform walls rose 110 feet and were capped by the rectangular cupola measuring 16 feet wide, 31 feet long, and 28.5 high. Even with four windows on the long sides, the cupola projected a sort of robotic muteness. It accommodated the leg, with pulley centers being 152.16 feet apart. The boot pulley was 72 x 14 x 2 3/16 inches while the head pulley was 1.25 inches deeper.

A 20-horsepower Howell motor turned the head pulley as fast as 40 rpm.

Wrapping around the pulley wheels, the 310-foot-long, six-ply Calumet belt was 14 inches wide. Grain cups measured 12 inches wide and six inches deep at 12-inch intervals.

According to the rating supplied by the cups’ manufacturer, theoretical capacity of this leg going all out was 5,380 bushels per hour. But it operated at 80 percent of maximum, meaning actual capacity was 4,300 bushels per hour. This required 18.6 horsepower.

A 7.5-hp Ehrsam motor operated the truck lift in the driveway, which raised a truck’s nose, causing the load of grain to stream into the pit.

A final note reads, “Pit Depth & Cupola Ht. incr. after final Plans. (Noted above.)” Could the cupola be higher than the listed 28.5 feet?

The extra information is consistent with records on other ’47 elevators. “Pit extra deep for cleaning,” says the note for Minneapolis, Kan., where the 100,000-bushel elevator also derived from the Pond Creek plan.

An identical note appends to the entry for the 150,000-bushel elevator at Dalhart, Tex., which was built on an original plan, and includes the revelation that the cupola height increased by 8.5 feet “due to Annex.”