This enticing view of Tillotson Construction’s elevator at Murphy, Neb.,–the curved headhouse brightened by floodlights in the yard–was taken by Jerry Jacobs and is used with permission.
This photo, provided by Kurtis Glinn, shows Tillotson Construction’s Murphy, Neb., elevator in the early 1960s. Note the ground storage of grain sorghum on the right, and the old wooden elevator on the left.
By Ronald Ahrens
A recent telephone conversation with Dennis Russell, who lives in Plano, Tex., revealed more details about the Russell family and his brother Jim, who died in an accident during construction of the Murphy, Neb., elevator. Dennis was the youngest of eight brothers: Bob, Roger, Jim, Jack, Byron, Bill, and Mark.
Their father William, born in 1900, had done construction on ammunition depots during World War Two, Dennis recalled. William, known as Bill, went to work for Tillotson Construction Company at an unknown date 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.”
The name was changed to Mid States Equipment Company. Grain elevators and feed mills were the main specialties. Bill Russell 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.”
Jim Russell’s promising future cut short
Dennis was born in 1949. “My whole life was elevators. We moved every year from ’59 till I graduated high school.”
All the Russell brothers worked on elevators, Dennis recalled. “I worked on those quite a bit myself every summer.”
“Jim, he was third-oldest, he died in, like, ’58 in Murphy, Neb., right outside of Aurora. There was an article about that in the Aurora paper at the time. We lived in Vermillion, South Dakota, but that summer I was in Aurora, we were staying with Dad. I remember Mom taking that phone call.”
At the time of his death in a freak accident (the links below tell the story), Jim was married to Shirley, a nurse, and had one year of law school remaining at the University of South Dakota.
By Kurt Glinn
I was the manager at the Aurora Cooperative Murphy location in central Nebraska. 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.
The Aurora Coop’s Murphy elevator and annex. Jim Russell died in a fall during construction.
Murphy is no more than an elevator along the railroad now. It is six miles west of Aurora, Neb., or fifteen miles east of Grand Island, Neb.
Thank you for a wonderful site. One of my first bosses was a man by the name of Willis “Bill” Maahs. He was a superintendent for Tillotson into the early ’60s when he stayed in Aurora and became operations supervisor for Aurora Co-op. He helped build the Murphy elevator and the Aurora elevators. There are two Tillotson houses in town, as well as the feed mill in Aurora.
I have always been intrigued with the workings of the old concrete houses versus the new bigger faster ones, although I know how farming and the grain business view them.
Concrete grain elevators are very highly regarded in the industry as the most permanent. My reference is to the older, smaller, multi-bin elevators of 20,000- to 25,000-bushel bins versus the newer 250,000- to 300,000-bushel bins being built.
The industry has come along way in the last fifty years: the ability to jack the forms with hydraulics, the diameter of the bins, the height and capacity of legs. Putting all the equipment outside of the structures rather than enclosing everything in the house, which has saved many elevators from the disaster of explosions, et cetera.
I find the older ones more interesting because they were what started a new generation from wood houses to concrete. Building work floors and platforms from concrete rather than steel and expanded metal. All is my own opinion as to why I enjoy the first generation of concrete grain elevators in the ag industry.
The Aurora Cooperative’s Murphy elevator and annex. Jim Russell died in a fall during the elevator’s construction. Photo by Kurt Glinn.
Story by Ronald Ahrens
My uncle, Tim Tillotson, recalls some details of the death of a son of Bill Russell, a superintendent for Tillotson Construction Company. Russell was the father of eight sons in all. The accident occurred in the 1950s.
Although he can’t remember which job [it was the Aurora Cooperative’s Murphy location in central Nebraska] or when it happened, Uncle Tim, who was not present at the time, recalls from on-the-scene reports that two of Russell’s sons were running the night crew.
The two were working with a storey pole, a measuring device of ancient origin. In this case, the storey pole was a metal tape, and it was used to verify the height of vertical sections. One son was on top, fifty-five feet up, feeding the tape down to the other on the ground.
“It was blowing in the wind, and he was letting it out,” Uncle Tim says. “The wind caught it to some power lines, and it gave him a jolt.”
A fall to the ground ensued.
“One side of him hit the Georgia buggy, which kind of spun him around. He was conscious on the ground, saying he thought he’d broken a leg. But by the time the ambulance got there, he’d died of shock.”
Uncle Tim suggests the likelihood of a brain hemorrhage as well.
The construction record was written with painstaking attention to detail.
Our friend Linda Laird has asked if the Tillotson Construction Company’s records included any Kansas elevators. The answer is yes, and here’s an example.
In 1948, Tillotson built an elevator of reinforced concrete at Moscow, in the extreme southwestern corner of the Sunflower State. The plan’s basic aspects were as follows: four tanks of 14 feet in diameter, 120 feet in height, and an eight-foot spread. The driveway was was 13 x 17 feet and there were six bins over the drive. Another notation says “Ext. to roof.” This shows up on most other plans and is supplemented by “1/2 grain” or “for grain.” The final item at the head of the plan’s entry in company records notes “13 bins & dust bin.” Here are all the data:
Capacity per Plans (with Pack) 100,000 bushels
Capacity per foot of height 1033 bushels
Reinforced concrete/plans (Total) 1070 cubic yards
Plain concrete (hoppers) 15 cubic yards
Reinforced steel/Plans (includes jack rods) 49.8 tons
Average steel per cubic yard of reinforced concrete 93.0 pounds
Steel & reinforced concrete itemized per plans
Below main slab 2850 lb/25 cu yd
Main slab 12,646 lb/91 cu yd
Drawform walls 68,424 lb/812 cu yd
Work & driveway floor (including columns) 1790 lb/14.5 cu yd
Deep bin bottoms 3740 lb/20.7 cu yd
Overhead bin bottoms 1733 lb/13.7 cu yd
Bin roof (corner) 2284 lb/23.1 cu yd
Scale floor (complete) 100 lb/3.0 cu yd
Cupola walls 3750 lb/40.0 cu yd
Distributor floor 1190 lb/5.0 cu yd
Cupola roof 890 lb/10.0 cu yd
Miscellaneous (boot, leg, head, track sink, steps) 100 lb/12.0 cu yd
Construction details
Tillotson’s Moscow, Kan., elevator, right, was built in 1948. The annex had to come later. Photo by Gary Rich.
Main slab dimensions (Drive length first dimen.) 40 x 45 feet
Main slab area (actual outside on ground) 1712 sqare feet
Weight of reinforced (total) concrete (4000#/cu yd + steel) 2190 tons
Weight of plan concrete (hoppers 4000#/cu yd) 30 tons
Weight hopper fill sand (3000#/cu yd) 260 tons
Weight of grain (at 60# per bushel) 3000 tons
Weight of structural steel & machinery 10 tons
Gross weight loaded 5490 tons
Bearing pressure 3.21 tons per sq ft
Main slab thickness 18 inches
Main slab steel (straight) 1 in diameter at 6 inch o.c.
Tank steel at bottom (round tanks) ⅜ inch diameter at 9 inch o.c.
Lineal feet of drawform walls 382 feet including exterior
Height of drawform walls 120 feet
Pit depth below main slab 11 feet 0 inches
Cupola dimensions (W x L x Ht.) 14 x 36 x 23 feet
Pulley centers 145.5 feet
Number of legs 1
Distributor floor Yes
Track sink Yes
Full basement Yes
Electrical room Yes
Driveway width–clear 12 feet
Dump grate size 2 – 6 x 11 feet
Columns under tanks size 20 inches square
Boot — leg & head Concrete
Machinery Details
Looking down the crowded streets of Moscow at Tillotson’s elevator, far right. Photo by Gary Rich.
Boot pulley 60 x 14 x 2 3/16 inches
Head pulley 60 x 14 x 3 15/16 inches
R.P.M. head pulley 42 rpm
Belt 14 inch 6 ply Calumet
Cups 12 x 6 inch at 8.5 inch o.c. Howell
Head drive 30 horsepower
Theoretical leg capacity (cup manufacturer rating) 66.0 bushels per hour
Actual leg capacity (80 percent of theoretical) 52.8 bushels per hour
Horsepower required for leg (based on above actual capacity plus 15 percent for motor) 23.3 hp
Man lift 2 horsepower Ehr
Load out scale Two 10 bushel Rich
Load out spout 8.25 inch W.C.
Cupola spouting 8.25 inch W.C.
Truck lift 7.5 horsepower Ehr
Dust collector system Fan → Air
Driveway doors Two overhead rolling
Conveyor Not required
Also Built
Office
Truck scale 45 x 10 feet — 50 ton
Flagler, Colo. in 2011. Photo by Gary Rich
My uncles Tim and Charles Tillotson have put their heads together and come up with a list of supervisors who directed operations on Tillotson Construction Company jobs. What follows are Uncle Tim’s notes, and we’ve done the best that we can in regard to spelling.
Glen Morrison
Francis Dawson (ranch in New Mexico connected to ours)
Doyle Elliott
Glen Casey
Jerry Grimes
Wallly Farmer (also did the house, Kelby Road)
Bill Russell (had seven [surviving] sons; some ran jobs for us; one [the eighth] was electrocuted dropping a steel measuring tape down one morning to verify height on a deck “story pole”; wind blew tape, which touched bare spot on high-tension power lines)
Jim Sheets (’bout half Native American)
Everett Glen (Chas & I concur Everett was the super on Flagler, Colo., in 1953; I had told you before that Mother found him dead in his car in the parking at the house where he was working on finish trim, cabinet work, et cetera; this unfortunate incident had to be fall or winter of ’53 after the job in the summer.)
This photo from the Tillotson Construction Company archives shows two painters on a flying scaffold at an undetermined elevator.
The following passage is by my Uncle Merle Ahrens, who recalls spending the summer of 1955 with my Uncle Mike Tillotson, painting elevators in Nebraska:
When Michael and I started work, all the concrete pouring was complete and we were given the task of painting the outside of the whole elevator. We painted it using a lime-base whitewash.
We had to crawl over the edge of the top of the tank onto a flying scaffold. The scaffold was held up by a pair of rope block-and-tackles connected to a pair of wood beams that were extended about two feet over the edge of the tank. The wood beams extended about ten feet inboard and were weighed down with sandbags to keep the scaffold from falling. The scaffold was made up of a pair of two-by-twelve boards with a metal frame at each end and two-by-four railings around it. The rope block and tackles were attached to the scaffold on the ground. We had to pull the scaffold up to the top every time for each ten-foot width we painted.
There was an old man on the ground who mixed the paint and pulled it up to us in a five gallon bucket. He had a harder job than we had. All we had to do was brush on the paint and pull the rope to release the half hitch that held up the scaffold and let gravity work to lower it. The “flying” part of flying scaffold was when the wind was blowing. You would fly halfway around the tank.
Merle Ahrens in 2011 at his home in Titusville, Florida.
Every night we would take off our Levi’s and stand them in a corner. There was so much paint on them! Yet one pair lasted all summer.
After a couple of months we finished painting the elevator in Lincoln and went to David City to paint another grain elevator. This time we used a new latex paint. It was very slow-drying and the wind kicked up a lot of dust. The elevator ended up white with grey stripes.
We kept hearing of accidents at other sites. One man [Larry Ryan]was said to have fallen from a plank used to walk between the tops of two tanks. He was wearing new boots and slipped.
Another was killed when roofers removed the sandbags holding the beam for the flying scaffold so they could hot-tar the roof.
A couple more were hurt while riding on a bucket and the clamps holding the cable slipped. The clamps were installed wrong.
I do know for a fact that one worker at Lincoln was hit in the face when a five-gallon bucket with concrete in it fell while he was using a rope and pulley to lift it overhead.
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Uncle Tim Tillotson recalled the challenge of painting while the scaffold flew back and forth in the wind. “When you’d come back you’d get a few licks in with the brush,” he said.
I spent a couple days during October 2012 photographing grain elevators in southwestern Kansas. Arriving in tiny Moscow, Kan., I saw a concrete elevator with a curved headhouse and had a hunch it was built by Tillotson Construction Company.
My problem was that it was operated by Archer Daniels Midland. ADM has a strict policy of not allowing anyone on their property. I went inside and had a conservation with the elevator manager. I didn’t have any hope getting into the elevator. He told me that it was built by Chalmers & Borton. I knew this was not the case, since Chalmers & Borton never built an elevator with a curved headhouse. He told me I could take all the photos I wanted. However, it would be across the street from the elevator.
I have wondered since this trip how I would ever find the true builder for this Moscow elevator.
The recently discovered records of Tillotson Construction Company show that Tillotson indeed built this elevator in 1948. Capacity was 100,000 bushels with 14 tanks and a 13-foot-wide center driveway. Six bins were over the driveway.
The Moscow elevator was a very small one for anything made of slip-formed concrete. Tillotson built another relatively small elevator in Rolla, Kan., that had a 140,000-bushel capacity. Most that Tillotson was building in this time frame were of 200,000-bushel capacity or even larger.
The Santa Fe Railroad had a branch line from Dodge City, Kan., to Boise City, Okla. It was about 140 miles in length. Tillotson Construction built elevators in Ensign, Montezuma, Satanta, Moscow, Rolla and Elkhart, Kan.
It’s quite an accomplishment that Tillotson built six elevators along this line.
This photo from Tillotson Construction Company’s archives looks south from the site of the Vinton Street elevator, completed in 1950. On the far right you see the main house, which is finished but for windows. The driveway is formed up. Leftover rebar is in the lower left and scrap is heaped in the center.
It’s unknown whether the silver trailer was being used in connection with the job, perhaps as an office. The black car, which could be a 1938 Buick, and the ugly-duckling blue-gray car, which could be a Plymouth (or maybe a Hudson?)–did they belong to employees?
What especially intrigues us are the shacks along the street. Were they part of the job–again, as office space, or to accommodate workers? Two of my Tillotson uncles have strained their memories but aren’t able to put together this part of the story, explaining why the photo was taken.
The Vinton Street elevator‘s driveway required the building of plenty of formwork before concrete could be poured. Here we see two men making final preparations. One is sweeping the deck, while the worker at the lower right is perhaps using a tool. The unknown photographer’s shadow intrudes into the lower left part of the frame.
Records show that 17 cubic yards of concrete were allotted for the driveway and the elevator’s work floor. The amount of reinforcing steel was not recorded.
A truck shed was then built. Although we lack a photo of it after completion, the record does show that Johnson Overhead Doors were to be installed, one at each end of the shed. And of course a scale was part of the package.
Our Grandfathers' Grain Elevators 