Maybe we’ve spent too long looking at grain elevators. On the other hand, after visiting Bryce Canyon National Park and seeing the hoodoos and rock towers, we experienced an irrefutable doppelgänger effect when we happened upon the abandoned Osiris Mill and Creamery, a.k.a. Red Mill. The two locations are thirty miles apart within Kane County, Utah. Osiris Mill, named for the Egyptian deity of the underworld, has the requisite ghostly quality and serves as a mysterious double to the park’s eroded formations.
John’s Valley Road, the narrow paved byway from Bryce Canyon City, Utah to the tiny hamlet of Antinomy, follows the east fork of the Sevier River through remote country that hardly promised an elevator discovery, yet we found a mill house and grain storage tanks in an obscure place called Black Canyon.
The wooden structure that adjoined stubby concrete tanks appeared after we passed a series of irrigated alfalfa fields on the plateau. Four tanks rose about twenty-five feet from the canyon floor. They were creased at regular intervals and seemed to indicate a type of construction other than the familiar slip-forming of our prairie and Great Plains elevators. The outer surfaces of the tanks were pleated, so to speak, and I had the impression they were made of precast concrete and joined together by mortar. The place was fenced, though, so it wasn’t possible to get up close. My guess is that, because the tanks aren’t so tall, a lower load-bearing rating meant this manner of construction produced a result sufficient in strength. Additionally, it’s hard to imagine a continuous-pour operation in such an out-of-the-way place.
In the central space between them, the four tanks supported a generously proportioned superstructure, which I’d otherwise call a run, and a ramshackle cupola.
I stepped out of the car for pictures but found it unnerving to have the absolute stillness broken by intermittent blasts from a medium-bore rifle. It seemed a safe bet the target wasn’t a grain-elevator blogger, though. Anyway, it’s illegal to shoot across a road, isn’t it? So I went ahead with the photos. It was around five o’clock, and the ruins were harshly backlit.
Returning afterwards to the car, I drove away hoping to find details about this attractive hybrid building, part grain-storage facility and part mill.
In no more than ten miles, my wife and I came to the tiny Garfield County hamlet of Antimony, pronounced AN-ti-MO-NEE, which takes its name from a “metalloid element” that’s useful as an alloy and in the making of semiconductors.
The name Antimony definitely doesn’t suggest a grain trading capital. The town is said to be so remote that it was the last in Utah to get electricity.
Nothing was moving except for a sturdy-looking man doing landscaping chores at Antimony Community Center.
“Oh, that’s Red Mill,” he said when I described the subject of my investigation. There used to be dryland wheat farming where the alfalfa is now, he said. The wheat growers gave it up after the Drought of … he couldn’t remember but reckoned the flour mill was last used sixty years ago.
Red Mill, more properly called Osiris Mill and Creamery, was built by William F. Holt, a major figure in western development projects. When he died in 1951, The New York Times declared, “WILLIAM HOLT, 87, BUILDER OF TOWNS; Developer of Resources of the Imperial Valley Dies–Work Formed Basis of Novel.” Or as the Garfield County News summarized: California’s Imperial Valley benefited from Holt’s touch.
Holt first came to Garfield County from his home in Hollywood, California in 1923. The County News lauded him:
“He was the real father of the Imperial Valley, starting work there in about 1900, at a time when there was neither water nor people in that entire country, its only inhabitants being horned toads and Gila monsters, and the turkey buzzards and crows all carried canteens.”
The News reported Holt’s initial development had started at Widstoe, namely, a power plant, a creamery, and Holt “expected to have a flour mill running in the near future.” He was president of Garfield Land Company, which operated out of a Los Angeles P.O. box. In 1926, Holt received permission from the Utah State Engineer’s Office to divert water from the east fork of the Sevier and fill a 3,000-acre-foot impoundment. The water would be used to irrigate 1,600 surface acres. Holt liked to go on about how California was becoming overcrowded and needed to import food — “everything that is suitable to be raised in this part of the country,” according to the News. He pushed for a new road between Widstoe, where his own fields were, and Escalante so that farm produce could more easily reach the Union Pacific line at Cedar City, arriving the next night in L.A.
Osiris Mill served as a granary and creamery at the now-defunct town of Osiris, named for the Egyptian deity who lorded over the underworld while also representing fertility and agriculture. Ruins on the other side of John’s Canyon road indicate the remains of Osiris. Widstoe is also characterized today as a ghost town; it was up on the plateau where I saw the irrigated fields. Widstoe and Osiris were separate by fifteen miles, and it seems safe to assume the flour mill and creamery referred to in the newspaper were the same relic we visited despite not being located at Widstoe.
Henry Bell Wright, the first American novelist to make $1 million, modeled a character on Holt in The Winning of Barbara Worth. Wright’s novel became a silent movie starring Ronald Colman, Vilma Bánky, and Gary Cooper. This Western flickered before the public in 1926, the same year the Utah Engineer’s Office awarded irrigation rights.
While time itself seems to stand still in this part of Garfield County, a full century has elapsed since the movie’s release.
The Osiris Mill and Creamery was well-crafted, which makes today’s overgrown site especially regrettable.
Despite the gunfire, our discovery of Osiris seemed heaven-sent. Even though it’s not one of Our Grandfathers’ Grain Elevators, we’re pleased to shine the spotlight once again on this remote wonderment.
So far, it’s impossible to explain why a photo of a tractor dealership was included in the archive of Tillotson Construction Co. We await further illumination.
Newspaper searches first reveal Troth Tractor & Equipment Co. in 1946 in Omaha. The dealership offered an integrated approach to farming. A classified ad in the World-Herald advises readers: Troth Tractor and Equipment, Authorized Ford-Ferguson Sales and Service. 2515 O St., MA 7958
Henry Ford and Harry Ferguson collaborated on the Ford-Ferguson 9N tractor, examples of which are seen here. This was around the same time that Raymond Loewy and Associates, of New York, designed the new Farmall for International-Harvester.
Wood Bros. Pickers (see sign) refers to the Wood Brothers Thresher Co.’s single-row corn harvester that the tractor towed along. Picked corn would be lofted into a wagon that trailed the picker. Wood Brothers was founded in Minnesota in 1893 and moved to Des Moines in 1899. A Facebook post provides further information:
Wood Bros. Thresher Company marketed their corn pickers on their own and then sold to the Harry Ferguson Co., a part of Ford MotorCompany.
WHY PAY CASH? asks Troth in this 1949 ad.
New improved Ford tractors and Wood Brothers pickers cost you less per acre and mean more income. Buy your new improved Ford tractor, Dearborn equipment, and Wood Brothers corn picker now. Up to 2 years to pay. Very low budget rates. A farm plan to fit your every need. Let the Ford tractor pay its own way and keep the profit in your pocket. We are easy to deal with. See us today. Omaha’s Ford Farming Headquarters.
The Dearborn Disc Plow and other implements were produced by the Dearborn Farm Equipment, agriculture division of Ford Motor Co. Note the neon sign in the showroom’s plate glass.
H.B. Smith, next door at 2517 O St., also appears to be a postwar addition to the O Street tableau.
To repeat, we can’t explain this photo. But if you told us that it was included because Uncle Mike Tillotson loved Ford Motor Co. so very much, that would be good enough.
A representative of CL Construction, of Lincoln, sends this aerial photo and reports “huge strides in the demolition of the grain elevators at 3001 Cornhusker Hwy. in Lincoln.” News of the project first broke late in 2024. The demolition site will be offered for redevelopment.
Lincoln’s 10/11 News visited early in 2026 for an update. Comments on the channel’s report range from sublime to ridiculous. These are unedited for style or factual correctness.
Sublime:@dougnagel1155 “What weird comments. It’s just time to move on. When I was a kid hauling grain to this elevator, it was on the outskirts of town. Now it’s pretty much in the middle of town. Farmers are not bringing the crops to Lincoln like they used to. There’s other elevators north of town that are easier to haul to and avoid city traffic. I’m sure the Lincoln site isn’t profitable anymore.”
Ridiculous:@VictorianMaid99 “No grain means no food and no food means no people. Planned demolition just like 911.”
Sublime:@danlowe8684 “Those silos were not in ‘disrepair’. They were some of the beefiest structures ever built – and would have been standing for many more generations. They have been working to demolish them for over a year with modern machinery – and are far from done. The silo builders invented slip-form concrete construction in the early 1900s (Buffalo, NY, I believe), and it is used today for bridge and highway construction.”
Ridiculous:@e030396 “Another example of this generations’ toxic mentality (tear-down-functional-structures with out good reason). Looks like a stupid move not considering the increase carbon foot print.”
Sublime:@paulkurilecz4209 “More than likely the conveyor systems were in disrepair. They were not refurbished due to a lack of business.”
Meanwhile, CL Construction has been active elsewhere.
“In between all of this, our team has been down in Sunray, Tex. to dismantle another grain elevator facility,” the spokesman reports.
We know Tillotson built in Sunray and suspect that’s the facility in question.
Note: The white elevator at upper right is a Tillotson elevator from the mid-1950s.
The cache of archival photos recovered from the Tillotson homestead includes an image of a wooden elevator complex, but there are no inscriptions on back of the photo so we have no clue of the location or date.
Close inspection of the image reveals the smaller of the two elevator buildings is labeled. It appears that “Farmers Co-Op” was painted over other lettering, possibly “Grain & Coal.”
The larger building–how about that headhouse!–is labeled Farmers Co-Op Co.
We sure wish we could identify the woman standing on the office porch. She is buttoned up tight inside her overcoat and giving a nice smile.
The car looks like a mid-1930s Pontiac.
There are other markings. We see the numerals 2 and 8 at the extreme left but can’t explain them. Three signs hang on the outer walls of the office. The one the car is facing advertises Semi Solid Buttermilk, a brand of partially dehydrated buttermilk that was used as a livestock and poultry feed supplement.
Brand advertising claimed: “When Sows are fed Semi-Solid they have little or no trouble from ‘dreaded white scours’ among the pigs.”
Ad from The Nebraska Farmer, Feb. 2, 1929
Signs to either side of the woman are illegible, but the shingle under the gable is inscribed Fairbanks Scales.
All the signs would lend the elevator a stamp of authentication: a patron of this establishment could be assured of getting the most advanced and most accurate services.
In general, the whole complex projects a mighty aura, and it’s easy to suspect this was one of the leading operations in its region.
In Nebraska, many of the 12,000- to 18,000-bushel wood elevators got turned into feed mills, mainly for cattle feed. Most of these elevators had a roller mill in the basement and made a decent feed mill due to their small bins. An example from Walthill, Nebr. is seen in the photo above.
Halbur, Iowa mill
Dodge, Nebr.Oakland, Iowa
In Iowa, this was less common due to more hogs than cattle. Swine feeds tended to be more complex with more ingredients than cattle feed.
Feed mills were still being built of wood in Iowa up until the 1960s.
Quad States Construction, out of Des Moines, Iowa, got started building wood feed mills and then became a major builder of concrete elevators and annex tanks.
When I started with the Omaha Bank for Cooperatives in 1975, my accounts were the co-ops north of Interstate 80. One was Tekamah, Nebr., where Farmers Elevator was in grain and feed. I was told this was the last wood elevator built in Nebraska.
It was huge for a wood house — 100,000-bushel capacity. I was also told they went with wood due to poor soil conditions. You can still see it on Google Earth. It’s the big one on the left.
Editor’s note: The poor soil conditions may have led to a heavy concrete elevator settling.
This June 29, 1961 article from the Burt County Plaindealer describes the new twin-leg elevator that would soon open with all the modern fittings found in a concrete elevator.
The very last wood house we financed at OBC was for the co-op at Sisseton, S.D. It’s still in use and holds 60,000 bushels.
I can remember it cost $6 per bushel ($360,000) when a 250,000-bushel concrete house was $500,000.
Minnesota and North Dakota stayed with wood longer than anywhere else because of their cold weather. They built as much as 250,000-bushel wood houses. Wood is a much better insulator than concrete and does not have condensation issues.
As we research an earlier generation of elevator construction, we can find wooden elevators, but not the ones we hope to find. It is almost impossible to match a builder to a specific elevator this late in the game, especially among the few surviving examples. But we are trying.
The difficulty is easy to illustrate. A case in point is the old elevator in Chugwater, Wyoming. I noticed it in the early 2000s on one of our many hunting trips while bypassing the town on I-25. I planned for a future photo shoot there, catching a cell phone image on the fly a couple of times to note its location. Once, I pulled over on the side of the road to get a couple of for-the-record shots. But when I finally decided to give it a proper visit, the elevator was nowhere to be found.
Chugwater, Wyo, 2016. The elevator on the left has disappeared.
Chugwater is known for some rather fine barbecue sauce, and it also has a historic soda fountain with the best root-beer floats ever made (just don’t stop on a Tuesday or Wednesday, when they are closed). When I asked a local business proprietor how long the elevator had been gone, she didn’t know–although she grew up in the town, she didn’t notice its absence. It was just there, and then it wasn’t.
I drove to the old elevator location, and found hardly any debris. Some concrete pads still existed in the field next to the railroad tracks, but you couldn’t tell what had once stood there. I took a couple of documentary shots. Those telltale concrete pads only remained because digging up the large quantity of concrete that supported the structure would be too expensive. And who really cared?
I guess I care, and I am scrambling to catch the last moments of the few elevators I can photograph while they exist.
Another example is the elevator in Clayton, New Mexico. It presently serves as a coffee bean roasting facility for an adjacent coffee house, but not for much longer. The proprietor explained that the elevator was beginning to lean because the prior owner had removed some structural support beams for personal use. The elevator is showing the strain. The metal siding is beginning to buckle, and even the resident ravens seem worried.
A raven holds court atop the Clayton, NM elevator, March 2026
I took pictures–lots of them.
We will keep trying to find any surviving Van Ness Construction-built elevators, and we will document their history. In the meantime, I will catch snatches of hundred-year-old stories while memorializing wooden elevators for as long as I can.
Considering the prevalence of robot vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers, it was only a matter of time until the predictions of autonomous farming machines came true.
Say hello to the John Deere robo-tractor. Had you known about Deere’s $33-million R&D center that opened in Urbandale, Iowa, in 2018? It helps lead to this.
The design staff must have had a great time working on it, although unlike automotive designers who create a concept vehicle, there’s only one color to play with.
The attachable cab calls to mind an insect that can fit its own head to the abdomen and thorax.
Maybe our readers will get a laugh from the 2-minite 43-second video. The music is inspiring in a “Chariots of Fire” sort of way.
Our Grandfathers’ Grain Elevators marked its 10th anniversary four months ago, but in the crush of the holiday season and early 2022 resort activities in Palm Springs, which is one location of our split headquarters, we forgot to mention it until now.
Thank you to all followers of our blog.
In these 10 years, our 455 posts have attracted 72,271 visitors and 158,294 page views. Just today, we’ve had looks from China, Portugal, Lithuania, Canada, and the Netherlands in addition to the United States.
Also in these 10 years, it can be said that we–Kristen Osborn Cart and Ronald Ahrens–have become excellent friends. You see us pictured above in May of 2021, when Kristen was able to parachute into Palm Springs and accompany me to the track, where I did an assignment for Robb Report. Then we went to the south shore of the Salton Sea and took pictures of burrowing owls.
Through our posts, we’ve made friends with readers, too.
Our favorite moments in this pursuit are personal visits to our grandfather’s elevators, but we also have been lucky in getting our hands on construction records. Not long after we got going on this project, Uncles Tim and Chuck Tillotson put their heads together and came up with valuable documents.
We also love it when comments come in or readers extend their personal stories, photos, and art–all of which have been important to our effort.
On this anniversary, we would like to share a bit more from our personal perspectives.
10-Year Journey, by Kristen Cart
The blog started very much by chance. I wanted to find the elevators my grandfather, Bill Osborn, built. My dad, Jerry Osborn, knew the locations for the projects and the names of grandpa’s boss, Reginald Tillotson, and his superintendents, so I began to scour the internet to find them. That is how I found Ronald Ahrens. In 2009, he had written a post on his personal blog about his grandfather, Reginald Tillotson, and his airplane, which was pressed into service for elevator stuff. I wrote a comment on the blog. So began a very productive relationship.
Early on, we partnered with a photographer and elevator enthusiast named Gary Rich. He was a retired Union Pacific man, and he has since passed away. He traveled around many of the places where our grandfathers plied their trade, and he accumulated a formidable collection of elevator images. He gave us views of elevators that are now demolished—some of which we never had a chance to see. I had occasion to do an elevator tour and photo shoot with him. He would look at my images and tease me about removing the rock in my shoe—almost all of my pictures tilted to one side or the other. He was a very good photographer and critic.
Gary is not the only contributor who has passed on to greener pastures. Many of the men who did the work in the 1940s and 1950s were older than our World War Two veterans, and most of them are gone. The interviews and photos in this blog gave voice to some of these men and women.
Kristen waits for birds near the south shore of the Salton Sea (Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge) in April 2021.
I look through our past posts and see a few that were started and not quite finished—I confess to being the guilty party. Usually some scrap of information was misplaced or missing. If I never got back to it, mea culpa. Palmer, Iowa, was one such post—I still have hopes of finishing it.
I don’t get around to a lot of the places as much anymore. I’m not the stalwart road-tripper I once was. But I will never forget how Ronald taught me about taking strong photos with context, and about interviews that bring people to life in print.
The blog has been a great ride. Here’s to another ten years.
Figuring out the Hidden Meanings, by Ronald Ahrens
When Kristen tracked me down in 2011, I had just moved to Southern California after 25 years in Michigan, and the last thing on my mind was grain elevators. During my youth in Omaha, Neb., everybody in the family knew that our maternal grandfather, Reginald O. Tillotson, had built grain elevators. But we knew nothing beyond that.
Kristen got the ball rolling. Genealogy was her established interest, and she had come up with some news clips that served as kindling for the great conflagration that’s followed.
Inside the main house at Booker, Texas, April 2018.
It’s hard for me to get to many elevator sites–the nearest one of “ours” is in Tempe, Ariz.–and besides that I keep busy as a freelance writer. But as mentioned, we came into the possession of more records, and by hook and crook, we’ve also managed to visit elevators in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nebraska, and Iowa.
My other big challenge has been learning how an elevator works. It certainly can be said that my inventory of lingo has increased. What other buildings come with such a rich lexicon? Boot, manlift, main house, cupola/headhouse, and load-out spout are a few examples.
In my career, I’ve written for 80 magazines and 24 newspapers, including some you’ve heard of. (For example, my byline and in some cases my own photos have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, New York Post, and USA Today.) But I can say with satisfaction that Our Grandfathers’ Grain Elevators is equally significant, and part of the pleasure is in doing it our way.
Our Grandfathers' Grain Elevators 