Category Archives: The Companies

Settling and cracking leads to suit against Tillotson Construction

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Dayton—Farmers Elevator Company has filed suit in federal court at Fort Dodge, Iowa, asking $92,120 from Tillotson Construction Co., Omaha, Neb.

The cooperative also is seeking a court order for the removal by the construction firm of a new 150,000-bushel elevator at Dayton. An alternate request included in the petition asks that if the court does not grant the damages and order the structure removed, that it should determine amount needed to place elevator in condition to conform with the contract between the companies and to grant that amount to the Dayton cooperative.

The petition charges that “due to faulty plans and construction the elevator is unsafe for use and in dangerous condition and is liable at any time to collapse.” The elevator was completed in September 1954 and less than a month later “settled, cracked and broke in numerous places,” the Dayton company alleges in the petition.

At the time the elevator was found to be damaged it was loaded with 110,000 bushels of corn and 30,000 bushels of beans.

Farmers’ Elevator Guide, v.48-50, 1953-55 p. 61 

130-foot fall claims Larry Ryan’s life in Pochahontas, Iowa

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Worker Is Killed in Fall From Elevator

Pochahontas, Iowa –(AP)–A 130-foot fall from the top of the Farmers Co-operative Elevator, under construction here, claimed the life Wednesday of Larry Ryan, 20, of Cassville, Mo.

Ryan, an employe of Tillotson Construction Co., Omaha, was operating a hoist used to raise supplies to the top of the elevator. Cause of the accident was not immediately learned.

Muscatine (Iowa) Journal

Thursday, July 29, 1954

Related articles

Edward Koppes injured in fall at Bonner Springs, Kansas

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Injured in Fall (The Sun’s Own Service)

Hanover, Kans., Jan. 28—Edward Koppes, son of Mr. and Mrs. Chris Koppes of Hanover, received a fractured right hip and right arm when he fell 20 feet from the roof to a concrete floor of a grain elevator which he was helping to build at Bonner Springs, Kans., on Jan. 19. He was taken to a Kansas City hospital. He is an employee of the Tillotson Construction company.

Beatrice (Neb.) Daily Sun

Wednesday, Jan. 28, 1948

Wayne Baker, 23, dies after falling from scaffold

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Wayne Baker Funeral Rites Monday P.M.

Funeral services for Wayne Baker, 23, Swanburg, will be held at 2 p.m. Monday at the Faith Lutheran church at Swanburg.

Baker was killed in Estill, S.C., when he fell 100 feet when a scaffold on which he was working broke.

Baker was employed by the Tillotson Construction company, Omaha, Neb., and was working on a grain elevator at the time of the accident.

His parents are Mr. and Mrs. Abe Baker, Swanburg.

Brainerd (Minn.) Daily Dispatch

March 22, 1952

Tillotson Construction wins contract to rebuild in Hawarden, Iowa

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Elevator Contract Awarded

New Structure to Replace Building Which Burned Last Fall

The Tillotson Construction Company of Omaha was awarded the contract Monday evening by the E.R. Lambertson estate for the erection of a new grain elevator on the North Western railway right-of-way to replace the structure which was destroyed by fire last September.

The new elevator is to be approximately the same size as the old structure. It will be 26×28 feet in size with a 14-foot driveway and will have a capacity for approximately 20,000 bushels of grain. The sides of the building will be covered with corrugated iron and it will have a metal roof. The old office, which escaped the flames in the fire last fall, will be utilized in conjunction with the new building. The new elevator is to cost in the neighborhood of $6,000.

The contractors hope to begin work on the project in about two weeks and they will utilize as much local labor as possible in its construction. The contract calls for completion of the building by May 1st.

Hawarden (Sioux County, Iowa) Independent

Thursday, February 1, 1940

* Yet another fire struck the Hawarden elevator in 2006.

Tillotson Construction partners announced September 9, 1938

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In the business pages of the Evening State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska), on September 9, 1938, the new corporation of Tillotson Construction of Omaha, Nebraska, was announced, listing Joseph H. Tillotson, Reginald O. Tillotson, and Rose A. Tillotson as partners.  The firm would specialize in the construction, reconstruction, and repair of grain elevators, warehouses, and similar buildings.

Rose A. Tillotson was the mother of Joe and Reginald. Her husband and their father, Charles (b. 1880, Brunswick, Missouri), had died in June of 1938 in Concordia, Kansas. She was born Rose Brennan on March 4, unknown year, in Ireland and died in the 1950s in Omaha while in her late-80s.

Virginia Engel Slusher recalls working at Tillotson Construction

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I worked at Tillotson when the office was in the boondocks, I worked with Ted, Bob and can’t remember the other one’s name. I was receptionist, helped with bookkeeping and just stuff. I remember when Mary brought her boxer to work with her. What ever happened to Johnny? I went from there to OPPD Credit Union, then quit working to raise a family. Now I live in Kansas.

Virginia Engel Slusher

October 31, 2011

John Hassman’s recollections of Tillotson Construction

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Back Alley, Paullina, Iowa, by Jim Hamann on January 21, 2010

I worked for [Reginald] (my uncle) from Sept 1948 to Jan 1951. My first job was Paullina, Iowa, where I did the timekeeping and a lot of other odd jobs needed at the time. After that I moved to Montevideo, Minn., doing the same work thru Nov 1949. I had an appendix removed in Nov and went to work in the Omaha office in December 1949. Your Dad paid for flying lessons which I used flying the different construction jobs in Nebraska, Kansas and Okla. I flew the Stinson Voyager and the Station Wagon. My dad Ralph went to work as a salesman in 1947 and sold many of the elevators sold during that [period] until 1952. I also was the pilot that flew for my dad to several of his jobs. While in the office I [was] trained by the office engineer to design buildings and was the major designer with R.O. to build his new home in Florence, Neb. Many mornings he would arrive with new ideas of what he wanted changed in the house, and we would start all over. Starting in Nov. 1950 we began construction on the new house. The foremen were kept busy in the winter doing that work. All using a concrete house with the ideas we used in Elevator Const. That was the coldest, windiest place to work in December. I left to go the the Air Force because I was about to be drafted in the middle of the Korean War. That was the end. The company closed before I returned. It was an exciting learning business that helped me for the rest of my working days as I have always been involved in some form of construction.

John Hassman

April 24, 2009