David Herbert Hatch is senior pastor at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Green Bay, Wisc. He worked slip-form construction on elevators throughout Iowa in the early to mid-1970s.
I would like to tell you a story.
Word is that one fall, after a grain elevator had serviced the community harvest, a federal inspector came for a look at the facility.
Unable to find the elevator manager, he took the liberty to climb a ladder outside a tank, all the way to the top. He opened a manhole cover, stepped through with his flashlight, and walked over the grain.
Using a re-rod, he probed around, checking the grain. Its high level in the tank at this time of year was a surprise.
“It should have gone to market by now,” he thought.
When he returned to the bottom the manager had arrived.
“Why is it that you have so much grain in the elevator?” the inspector asked.
“There’s no grain in it whatsoever,” the manager said.
He opened a steel door.
The inspector peered into an empty tank.
They shone the flashlight beam to the top and, even to the manager’s shock, saw a frozen ring of grain.
If the inspector had fallen through, with his probe, it would have been the end of his life.
David Hatch was born and raised in Ames, Iowa. Prior to college studies, Pastor Dave worked construction and had hopes of serving in law enforcement until his partial color-blindness prevented that. He did not know what to do with his life. Through God’s Providence and a phone call from his sister, who was a kindergarten teacher in Milwaukee, he enrolled in a college where, unknown to him, many of his future classmates were studying to be pastors. He received his education at Concordia College in Milwaukee; Concordia Teacher’s College, River Forest, Ill.; and Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Ind. His pastoral career began in 1982, following seminary, when he served as an admissions counselor at Concordia College in Bronxville, N.Y. and parish pastor at Love Lutheran Church outside of Albany, N.Y.
David Herbert Hatch is senior pastor at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Green Bay, Wisc. He worked slip-form construction on elevators throughout Iowa in the early to mid-1970s.
Our operations back in the1970s had many vulnerabilities. That is, there were a lot of, “What ifs?”
The whole operation depended on a constant pour. If we had to shut down, we would have, what I remember them calling, a cold seam. That’s when the whole jacking system stopped. The concrete sat in the forms and dried, and everything had to be restarted again at a later time.
One absolutely ugly seam would be left around the perimeter of an otherwise beautiful structure. Not only that, but the drying concrete might hang up and attach itself to the forms, and they would not go up. So that’s what we tried to avoid.
Remember, I just ran a winch, and I only had hearsay. I was 18 or 19 and trying to gather information. I can only speak from what I know, and that’s not much.
What things could happen to cause such a shutdown?
What if an electrical storm lasted several hours and we had to get off the decks because we were a giant lightning rod?
What if the power went out in the city? There would be no electricity to run the jack pumps or the lights around the perimeter of the deck or to operate the electric-powered concrete vibrators!
What if only a bare-bones part of the crew showed up for work one day? Would there be enough manpower to lay the steel and push the concrete in ratio to how fast the forms had to be jacked?
What if the engine on the winch died? There was no back-up winch. (Setting the winch in place was no small matter. It had to be anchored into the ground just right, and angled perfectly so that the cable would wind properly on the spool. If the cable didn’t wrap right, it would rub against itself during wrapping and begin to fray, and then it would not be reliable.
Up on the deck was the jack house, where the jack pumps were kept. If I remember right, there were two of them, a primary and a back-up. The chance of going down, it seems, was low.
There were 1,000 other possible troubleshooting challenges. For example, concrete setting up too fast, hanging up in the form during normal operation and “pulling a hole” that would appear below as the forms began to rise. That would not stop the operation, but it sure would be a problem requiring later patching. If I remember right, the forms were oiled down prior to the start to help prevent this.
David Hatch was born and raised in Ames, Iowa. Prior to college studies, Pastor Dave worked construction and had hopes of serving in law enforcement until his partial color-blindness prevented that. He did not know what to do with his life. Through God’s Providence and a phone call from his sister, who was a kindergarten teacher in Milwaukee, he enrolled in a college where, unknown to him, many of his future classmates were studying to be pastors. He received his education at Concordia College in Milwaukee; Concordia Teacher’s College, River Forest, Ill.; and Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Ind. His pastoral career began in 1982, following seminary, when he served as an admissions counselor at Concordia College in Bronxville, N.Y. and parish pastor at Love Lutheran Church outside of Albany, N.Y.
During the slip operation, the ground was an exciting place to be. The viewing experience would be a little like watching Devil’s Tower rise out of the earth to its finished height in seven days–or the lights going on at the Field of Dreams. “If you build it they will come.” Especially at night, the farmers came. They stood, they watched. Without trying, we stepped out of their cornfields, and they beheld a sight they would never forget.
David Herbert Hatch is senior pastor at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Green Bay, Wisc. He worked slip-form construction on elevators throughout Iowa in the early to mid-1970s.
At night, the gatherers saw lights, heard a roaring winch engine, and saw concrete trucks lined up. They heard shouts from the deck to the ground: “More vertical rebar!” They could see concrete finishers go around and around the structure, lit with strings of incandescent bulbs. But silent to them were the jacks, lifting the whole unit several inches a minute.
Out in the flatlands, night travelers who were miles away could see a slip going up.
Ground support was by means of various components.
The Steel Pile–There was a steel pile on the ground. The guy running the steel gin pole called down for vertical or horizontal re-rod. He also called down for jack rods or a large drinking-water container with cups. Perhaps he sent up parts or hydraulic oil. Mostly, he sent up steel using a cable choker.
The Concrete Truck and Driver–Here is an important guy, the concrete-truck driver. He filled the concrete bucket as fast as he could, got out of the way, and watched it go up. As the gin pole operator pulled the bucket in for dumping, it went out of sight of the driver below. Then it reappeared in free fall to the ground and the cycle repeated.
I believe concrete-truck drivers had a dangerous job for many reasons. What if the winch operator did not stop the free fall in time? What if a pulley failed or snapped at its axle? What if someone dropped something from above, like the finisher’s bucket or brush? What if a Georgia buggy driver overfilled the form just above the concrete truck?
There were always one or two trucks lined up when the current one was out of mud. Sometimes we had to ask the driver to add more water to the mix as it was too thick. Sometimes we asked them for more calcium to have it set quicker, perhaps if the mud was too thin. Tricky business. They have come out with trucks that unload the concrete from the front. I believe that it is easier for the driver to control his parking and dumping. Those were not legal in Iowa back then as they were too heavy. No clue about the law today.
The Boom Truck–What a cool old truck! Resembling a tow truck, this cob-job lifter moved things around the job site. It was as fun to drive as it was deadly. Every driver was warned, “Don’t drive under low hanging power lines, you will snag them, and it will kill you!”
The Job Superintendent’s Office–This was often a large mobile home. There were blueprints everywhere and concrete dust all over. It couldn’t be helped. That is where you got your new hardhat if you needed one.
The Townspeople–Putting up an elevator in a small town made for a big gathering. This would be their elevator. Their grain would go into it. Their bread and butter depended on this concrete and steel. And so they came and watched. Seeing a slip-form operation working at night is better than visiting the midway at the state fair. The sights, the sounds, the whole event–wow!
The Winch–The winch that lifted the concrete bucket was powered by a Ford industrial engine. I had always thought it was a six-cylinder inline engine, but it may have been a four. The winch was anchored into the ground, several hundred feet away from the base of the elevator. I never studied the anchoring into the earth, but it must’ve been substantial.
The engine shroud was red. The operator stood up while running the winch. The throttle was a small wire with a piece of wood as the handle running through the shroud to the carburetor. There was a large foot-brake for the operator’s right foot. It had a hand clutch for the right arm. The hand clutch was tall, like a walking cane or taller, bent over to the right at the top. There were no gears, just single speed. There was no tachometer visible. It would’ve been fun to have a tachometer.
The winch operator had to be alert at all times. He had to have good eyesight for distance. The goal was to get the concrete bucket filled with mud and send it up to the gin-pole operator at the hopper. That gin pole operator would swing the bucket in, dump it as fast as he could into the hopper, and push it back out in the open air. Then the winch operator would begin to free fall the bucket to the ground. Obviously everything I just described cannot be done from at 10 feet off the ground. Once you hit 20 feet and up, things got exciting.
The winch operator had a lot of responsibility, because if he wasn’t being careful, he could run the bucket up into the top gin pole at full speed, knocking the hopper guy off. If he wasn’t careful, when free-falling the bucket to ground and braking late, he could injure folks on the ground–especially the concrete truck driver.
The winch operator had to keep an eye on the cable winding (spool wrap) so that it did not overlap and pinch itself, causing a frayed cable.
For myself, this job was so intense that when I was not working, I would sit up in bed and run the winch in my sleep. The guys working with me got the biggest kick out of that. We were all piled up in motel rooms as we moved from town to town.
In conclusion, it was a blast! I absolutely loved this job–especially the roar of that engine at full speed under load.
David Hatch was born and raised in Ames, Iowa. Prior to college studies, Pastor Dave worked construction and had hopes of serving in law enforcement until his partial color-blindness prevented that. He did not know what to do with his life. Through God’s Providence and a phone call from his sister, who was a kindergarten teacher in Milwaukee, he enrolled in a college where, unknown to him, many of his future classmates were studying to be pastors. He received his education at Concordia College in Milwaukee; Concordia Teacher’s College, River Forest, Ill.; and Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Ind. His pastoral career began in 1982, following seminary, when he served as an admissions counselor at Concordia College in Bronxville, N.Y. and parish pastor at Love Lutheran Church outside of Albany, N.Y.
David Herbert Hatch is senior pastor at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Green Bay, Wisc. He worked slip-form construction on elevators throughout Iowa in the early to mid-1970s.
It was 1973. Vietnam was still rolling along. Woodstock was four years in the rearview mirror, Watergate was only an investigation, and the Supreme Court had just decided Roe vs. Wade.
My friends and I graduated from high school that spring and signed on with Todd & Sargent out of Ames, Iowa, our hometown. For the next three summers we journeyed from slip to slip around Iowa.
In slip-form construction, we took–from the ground–a four-foot high honeycomb of wood to 120 feet in a mere seven days. It paid $4 an hour. Fast food was $1.60. I had just set down my mop at McDonald’s in order to learn a lot about slip-form construction.
In the beginning everyone got a little experience at each job. Perhaps it was like what the Navy does on a sub, training each man at each station just in case. I went from pushing a Georgia buggy, to running the concrete hopper, to settling into my saddle as the ground winch operator.
Rain or shine, cold or wet, once the pouring began it did not stop until you hit elevation or an emergency stop for lightning. The crew worked two 12-hour shifts, pouring 24 hours a day. On my first day I received a white hardhat and gloves. It sure beat the paper hat at the Golden Arches.
I clearly remember looking around and seeing something very complex: the work of a busy-bee carpenter who created an enormous, complex configuration of lumber. There were multiple, circular, honeycomb-like sections (tanks) with endless vertical wood slats (forms), and scores of steel (rebar and jackrods) rising six or eight feet like antennas. It was neat, clean, and super-intricate. There was sawdust everywhere!
On the deck with its several features and teams
The Deck–A plywood floor was attached to the forms. This is where the workers would live for the next seven days. It served like the floor on a regular elevator, but slower, in a business building and would go up with you on it. Or consider it like a stretched trampoline canvas with nothing beneath. Good thing we couldn’t look down.
The Pump Shack–On the deck the pump shack housed the hydraulic pumps. From here the hydraulic lines fed oil to the jacks. On many jobs, a father and son from Arkansas were the jacking experts. And experts they had to be. Lose the pump or blow a line, and the jacking could stall, hanging up a form or creating a cold ugly seam on the outside wall.
The ground winch operator.
The Steel Gin Pole and Winch–On the deck was a gin pole with its own electric winch. This brought up vertical and horizontal steel to be laid in the forms, spaced out and tied into place with wire ties. The gin-pole operator also brought up jackrods. These were threaded on the ends. They were about six feet long and perhaps a solid inch or more in diameter. The operator of the steel gin pole stood at an unprotected opening upon the sky. There had to be a gap for the steel to come through. He had a dangerous job. One of my friends ran this gin pole for awhile and recalled almost falling off when he lit his pipe.
The Concrete Hopper and Gin Pole–This gin pole and its operator received the loaded concrete bucket from the ground, dumped its contents into the hopper, and pushed the bucket into open air for free fall back to the ground and refilling. That pattern continued for seven straight days. The gin pole had a swing arm for the operator to bring in and return the bucket. Two pulleys were on the pole, one at top-center, one at the end of this upside down “L.”
The Steel Layers–Some guys were assigned to lay steel, both vertical and horizontal, inside the forms. The concrete was poured over the steel and all of it disappeared as the jacks lifted the deck, two inches a minute, as I recall. Then more steel would be laid, repeatedly and perpetually, until we hit elevation. Without the steel, the wall might succumb to a blowout.
The Jackrodders–These guys went around adding new jackrods where the existing ones were getting shorter and disappearing into the rising form. The jackrods were super-heavy. They had to be threaded onto the top of the other rod, above the jack. These jacks “bit” the rods, lifting and raising the deck in unison around the perimeter. With that, up went the whole structure!
The Concrete Pourer–This stalwart guided a Georgia buggy from the hopper through the narrow track in the formwork. If you pushed all day down Georgia Buggy Boulevard, you never had to join the YMCA.
The Concrete Vibrators–Carrying electric-powered vibrators, they rid the concrete of bubbles inside the forms. A man’s hands got numb, more so than from riding a Harley all day.
Safeway Scaffold Ladder–As the deck went up, new sections were added to the external Safeway ladder system. This was our way up and down. The more days that went by, the higher the ladder.
The Finishers–We never saw these guys from the deck. They stood on a suspended wooden scaffold that went around the perimeter below the deck. With a brush and a bucket of water, they finished the concrete and made it pretty. Around and around they went, never stopping until we hit elevation. Sometimes the blueprint called for a door or window to be dropped into the form at a certain elevation. The finishers would pretty-up the edging around that door or window as it came out of the form. If the door or window was uneven–no changing that.
Part Two tomorrow.
David Hatch was born and raised in Ames, Iowa. Prior to college studies, Pastor Dave worked construction and had hopes of serving in law enforcement until his partial color-blindness prevented that. He did not know what to do with his life. Through God’s Providence and a phone call from his sister, who was a kindergarten teacher in Milwaukee, he enrolled in a college where, unknown to him, many of his future classmates were studying to be pastors. He received his education at Concordia College in Milwaukee; Concordia Teacher’s College, River Forest, Ill.; and Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Ind. His pastoral career began in 1982, following seminary, when he served as an admissions counselor at Concordia College in Bronxville, N.Y. and parish pastor at Love Lutheran Church outside of Albany, N.Y.
Our Grandfathers' Grain Elevators 