You could buy a penny box of matches in those days and get a lot for your money.
Take this case from Newell, Iowa, for instance. Three boys–two aged nine and one aged 12–spent two cents on the afternoon of September 3, 1953. With a good supply of matches, they went to Fullerton Lumber Co. to experiment. Dipping a stick into flammable liquid, they lit it. When the stick flamed up and became a torch, the boy holding it suffered a burned finger and flung it away.
The lads were spared additional injuries, but the inferno they started around 5.15 p.m. burned for six hours. The lumber yard was consumed, and with a stiff south breeze and dry conditions, flames jumped to the Farmers Co-op elevator. By 6.45 p.m., this wood elevator was declared a total loss.
Besides the force commanded by Newell fire chief Paul Wilfong, crews arrived from Fonda, Sac City, Early, Storm Lake, and Nemaha.
The fire spread to three refrigerated freight cars in a string of fifteen cars on a nearby railroad siding. The three reefers were left to burn after the rest of the string was detached and moved along the track.
Firemen succeeded in preserving the Galbraith Elevator next door and oil tanks fifty yards off.
Franklin Willadsen, manager of the Galbraith Elevator, said the flames were controlled by 11.30 p.m., although the grain smoldered overnight.
The Illinois Central estimated all damages at $500,000. A subsequent report put the losses in the range of $275,000 to $500,000.
Google Street View in 2026
Newell Construction Co. built the Farmers’ elevator in 1915–the same year the Iowa Cooperative Law (Iowa Code Chapter 497) was passed.
“It will handle all kinds of grain,” a news report said. “A feed house is also being built and will be complete in a few days, and feed and coal will be handled here. The elevator is just north of the Milwaukee coal chute and J.R. Timms, who has been assistant of the Farmers’ company at Alburnett, has been engaged for a year, and assumed charge Monday.”
The Newell Farmers Co-op decided on a reinforced-concrete elevator as a replacement and arranged with Tillotson Construction Co. to build it. The new 150,000-bushel single-leg concrete elevator was completed in 1954.
When Harper and Bowers wanted to expand their grain operation in Estill, S.C., they went with Midwestern expertise. Stiles Harper and Grover Bowers were on the cotton side of things upon founding their company in 1947 but branched out in the early 1950s as South Carolina farmers found success with double cropping. Grain followed by soybeans was a development that sent the producers looking for sufficient storage and handling.
To foster this new practice, Harper and Bowers sponsored a soybean-growing contest. The winners for the 1953 crop were a father-son team, R.C. and Bobby Deloach, the boy being a 4-H club member,. They harvested 36 bushels per acre. Deemed a success, the contest was renewed for 1954.
Stiles Harper was an Estill native who attended the University of South Carolina. He was 37 years old when he cofounded Harper and Bowers, Inc. Besides leading efforts in soybean processing by cofounding Southern Soya Corp., he also advocated for pine tree plantations and was named South Carolina Tree Farmer of the Year in 1977.
Grover Bowers, Jr. was a University of South Carolina graduate who fought with the Marines in the Pacific Theater during World War Two, achieving the rank of captain. He served one term in the South Carolina senate and in 1978 received the Order of the Palmetto, the state’s highest civilian honor.
Burrell elevator, 1951
The first Harper and Bowers elevator, with 125,000-bushels capacity, was built in 1951 by Thomas L. Burrell, Inc. of Indianapolis. Then the partners commissioned Tillotson Construction Co. of Omaha to put up a 225,000-bushel storage annex in 1952.
The next year, Tillotson was back to build a companion elevator, a 334,000-bushel twin-leg job with a striking curved cupola that added 50 additional feet to the Lowcountry skyline. The expansion enabled Harper and Bowers to accommodate the needs of area farmers, a point that’s elaborated in an article from The Press and Standard on Oct. 15, 1953:
A 1954 news report indicated Harper and Bowers planned a storage annex to join the Tillotson elevator, further increasing capacity at Estill to 1 million bushels.
Kristen visited the location in 2014 and took the pictures seen with post.
Key specifications on the two Tillotson jobs are listed here:
225,000-bushel annex in 1952:
9 tanks measuring 18 feet in diameter and reaching 108.5 feet in height.
Full basement
Upper run measuring 14.0 x 93.0 feet
Belt conveyors, 20-inch belt at bottom and 24-inch belt at top
13 internal bins
1,509 tons of reinforced-concrete, 25 more tons for hoppers
75.27 tons of steel
Slab 50 x 78.5 feet, 21 inches thick
9,582 tons gross weight loaded
334,000-bushel twin-leg elevator in 1953
10 tanks measuring 18 feet in diameter and rising 120 feet
21 bins
2,620 tons of reinforced concrete, 63 more tons for hoppers
After being established in Denver in the late-1940s, Mayer-Osborn Construction Co. sought innovation in methods, which led to use of Stran-Steel in the elevator they built for Adolph Coors Co. at Johnstown, Colo.
It would be necessary to look at the plans for this elevator in order to know more about technique and application, but an assumption is that Stran-Steel was easier to work with than labor-intensive rebar.
The Coors job got underway in the spring of 1950. The Johnstown Breeze announced:
“Preliminary work began Tuesday on the construction of the new receiving and storage elevator for Coors’ Moravian malting barley here. The elevator, which will be of concrete and strang [sic] steel construction, is being built by the Mayer-Osborn company of Denver and will be completed prior to July 1 when harvesting normally is started on the malting barley crop to be received at the elevator.”
Stran-Steel–commonly misspelled as “Strang”–was introduced in the Good Housekeeping Stran-Steel House at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair.
The Coors elevator went up on a former stockyards site in the railroad triangle southeast of Johnstown. The area is today known as Colorado Sweet Gold, a slick name for an industrial park.
In that long-ago time, the United States Brewers Foundation sponsored a “Beer Belongs” campaign to encourage beer drinking in the home instead of taverns. Coors was expanding its production of Moravian barley, as recorded by History Colorado:
“Coors scaled up the barley program quickly, enhancing the vertical integration of its operations and further tightening its control over the entire supply chain. A breeding program at the experimental farm the company created in 1949 in the San Luis Valley developed improved high-altitude varieties from the original seed stock … Grain storage facilities were built beginning in the 1950s near Loveland, and in Monte Vista in the San Luis Valley, collecting barley directly from the farmers and storing it until it was needed at the brewery in Golden, where a large new custom-designed malthouse was completed in 1957.”
Johnstown is twelve miles from Loveland.
Once the job got going, The Breeze reported on April 27 that burglars forced a lock at the combination tool shed and office. They stole $550-worth of stuff. Construction superintendent Ralph McAfee said the loss included two large power saws and “numerous” other tools.
Stran-Steel explained in company promotional literature archived by the University of Chicago
We’ve found no further news of the construction or details of the elevator itself, but it was surely finished by September when Mayer-Osborn billed the Johnstown Town Board of Trustees $7.20 for supplies.
Additional searching reveals some aspects of Mayer-Osborn’s nature. For one, the Colorado Grain, Milling and Feed Dealers Association Bulletin reports that in an October 1952 conference, Eugene Mayer served as a member of the Equipment and Engineering Panel. Other members were Curtis Wagner, chairman; D.O. Ferris, Richardson Scale Co., Denver; Ray Barmington, Colorado A&M research engineer.
Mayer-Osborn was community-minded as well. In 1954, the Arvada Enterprise reported Mayer-Osborn’s midget baseball team would play the Lakewood Terrors on July 3.
Another item shows that, as with so many other elevators then and now, a Mayer-Osborn house could the scene of tragedy. The Associated Press had reported on July 18, 1952:
“Charles Myers, 16, of Johnstown was killed this morning when he was buried under a barley slide inside the Coors elevator here. Death was probably due to asphyxiation, but an autopsy will be held to determine the exact cause, Coroner Ross Adamson said. The coroner reported the boy and Bill Freauf, elevator manager, went inside the elevator to run grain into a truck. Mr. Freauf left the bin for about ten minutes and was unable to find the boy when he returned. Rescuers got the boy out about 40 minutes later and a Johnstown physician worked with a resuscitator for two hours in a futile attempt to revive the youth, Adamson said. The youth, a Johnstown high school student, was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Myers. A sister [Marjorie] also survives.”
It was an devastating tragedy for all.
What became of Mayer-Osborn’s barley elevator is unclear. Photos on the Colorado Sweet Gold website show nothing we would expect of an elevator from that era. Further searches concerning the elevator’s fate turns up news (link here) of an explosion and fire in October of 2005 and a “collapsed” grain elevator. No more details than that, but it suggests an unhappy outcome for Mayer-Osborn’s innovative elevator that met the needs of the Coors company in 1950.
Not every job produced a beautiful enough result for the cover of Farmers Elevator Guide, but Tillotson’s 99,000-bushel elevator at Montevideo, Minn. made the grade in January of 1950. This ingenue hardly derailed the flourishing pinup careers of Marilyn Monroe and Bettie Page. Yet, by its own graces, the comely house at Montevideo merited exposure.
How odd it is that such glory emanated from a state where Tillotson Construction Co. did little work.
It appears to be so because of a combination of factors. For one thing, agricultural practices were different in the northern part of the Grain Belt. For another, extreme winter weather there may have militated against the advantages of concrete construction. And then again, a tough labor climate may have made the company reticent about bidding on additional Minnesota contracts.
It can be established the company was active in Minnesota as early as 1943 when a Help Wanted ad ran in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Yet our study of records reveals just two elevators of reinforced-concrete that the company built in the North Star state. We might be able to explain the small number, but first we must consider the story of a strike threat.
Tillotson started to prepare the build for Farmers Equity Elevator Co. early in the summer of 1949, but six unions–laborers, drivers, electricians, carpenters, iron workers, and equipment operators–filed a strike notice against the company on July 25. So much of Tillotson’s work until then had been on the western prairies and the Great Plains, which is to say it occurred in a kind of void.
Minnesota was a different story. It was emphatically not Kansas or Oklahoma, where laissez-faire practices prevailed. For one thing, Senator Hubert Humphrey was in his first term in Washington, D.C. after being elected on the Democratic-Farmer-Labor ticket. And we speculate that unions were on the prowl, compensating for the loss of government contracts after World War Two.
There’s no record of reactions to the notice by John Evans, who led Farmers Equity, or by the other members of the board of directors: N.F. Nelson, E.J. Jorgenson, Nels Larson, and Clifford Canton.
My grandfather Reginald Tillotson may or may not have been sympathetic to organized labor, but it’s unlikely that he appreciated the strong-arming attempt by six unions. It led to an unwelcome delay. People were left twiddling their thumbs until matters got settled. The company surely incurred unanticipated costs. Meanwhile, in a continuous-pour operation, how would a small flexible crew observe union work rules?
Filing the strike notice earned the unions a ten-day waiting period before Harry Hanson, the Minnesota labor conciliator, came to Kandiyohi County to hear the case.
As reported in the West Central Tribune, of Willmar, the unions charged bias by Tillotson.
‘The company is discriminating against union members of the various building trade crafts and is refusing to discuss or sign the standard union agreements in effect in this area. Unless an agreement can be reached, we will be forced to strike on or after the date prescribed by law.”
When the meeting was finally held, the iffy situation was extended.
“The State Conciliator ordered that neither party take any action relative to the dispute until a further conciliation meeting has been held. The meeting was set for Tuesday in Montevideo. The Tillotson firm was represented by Wm. Russell and by Attorney Prindell of Montevideo. Union representatives were Ernest Lee, General Drivers; Harry Smith, Construction Laborers; Joe Krech, Electrical Workers; Ed Lynch, Structural Iron Workers; Dale Burchett, Operating Engineers; and a representative of the Carpenters’ local.”
What happened next is unclear except for the fact that the Montevideo elevator was finished. It was built on the plan established earlier in 1949 at Churdan, Iowa, the chief differences being it was a twin-leg house instead of single-leg and the drawform walls reached 102 feet in height instead of 100 feet. The extra leg required additional internal space. Even though both elevators had four tanks measuring 14.5 feet in diameter, total capacity at Churdan was 102,000 bushels–some 3,000 bushels greater than at Montevideo.
Remarks in the construction record indicate special provisions:
The Farmers Elevator Guide cover photo shows two men posing with scaffolding at the 13 x 17-foot driveway door. Piles of sand and gravel are nearby. The hoist remains in place on the roof, and a big sheet of something or other dangles along one side. In the lower left corner we see a wood structure.
Whatever strife was experienced, it was forgotten by the time of the dedication ceremony on Dec. 30. Tom Croll, assistant manager of the Farmers Union Grain Terminal association, came clear from St. Paul to deliver the principal address. (To our regret, none of his remarks were repeated in the Tribune.) There were other dignitaries: the Montevideo mayor, the presidents of the co-op creamery and the co-op cannery, and the assistant superintendent of the Hastings and Dakota division of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (the Milwaukee Road).
After speeches, Mrs. Ernie Hellervik, Basil Hendrickson, and Ruth Nelson performed songs. Following the music, the projector lit up to show promotional films produced by the Minnesota Farmers Union Grain Terminal Association.
In its report on the dedication, the Tribune became a little breathless when reciting the new elevator’s specifications and features.
The 100,000 bushel capacity of the recently completed elevator raises the total capacity of the co-operative to 125,000 bushels. Special features of the new building include its 17 bins, 50 ton and 50 foot scale, two concrete elevating legs, very modern distributing system and two section dump pit, each of which has 400 bushels capacity. Into the all-concrete structure went 8 thousand bags of cement. The firm [Farmers Equity] is particularly proud of its new type of corn drier, with a 400 bushel per hour capacity, and of its two large grain cleaners.
On Google Maps, we found the elevator in a lovely sunset photo that we don’t have the nerve to swipe for display here, so we’re providing the link and one can look for oneself: https://maps.app.goo.gl/fsx2v5ykxDhiZH8q7.
Meanwhile, it’s a pity we only have the cover image but not the full issue of Farmers Elevator Guide, because it would be interesting to see if the cover-girl elevator also appeared on the centerfold.
When you see southwest Kansas down to Amarillo, Tex. from the air (or Google Maps), a distance of 150 miles, you see thousands of center-pivot circles. The pivots were installed to grow corn for the beef-cattle industry, the huge feed yards that are located in this part of the U.S. It’s not unusual to see 100,000-head-capacity yards in this region. It became a “cattle magnet” with the construction of the IBP kill facility at Amarillo in the early 1970s.
Why here? Because of few people, water from the Ogallala aquifer, cheap natural gas to power the wells, and a plentiful supply of feeder cattle from Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico ranchers.
This heavily irrigated part of the Great Plains, and the crops that are now grown there, will be changing as drastically as any agricultural region in the U.S.
Why? “The cows are coming!” It’s is one of the two major areas to where California dairy cows are being relocated.
Why? Water issues and concerns about methane emissions in California.
In anticipation of all these dairy cows, new cheese plants have been built in Dalhart and Lubbock, Tex. and in Dodge City, Kan.
The other area where California cows are moving is the Columbia Valley of the Pacific Northwest. And to point out what most folks don’t realize—California, not Wisconsin or Minnesota, has been the number-one dairy state for more than 30 years.
Tillotson elevator at Rolla, Kan., 1948Rolla in more recent times
Here’s the change: When the cows move in, farmers tend to switch to growing forages rather than corn. It means alfalfa, grass mixtures, and specific corn varieties for silage rather than grain. They’re important for proper nutrition for dairy cows, high in protein (especially alfalfa) and the roughage is great for a ruminant. An acre of forage crop can produce about twice the biomass as compared to corn. On top of that, forage production uses significantly less water than irrigated corn. And on top of this, forages can’t be shipped in by train. An AI overview explains:
Forage crops like hay and silage are rarely shipped by train because they are bulky, have a low financial value per pound, and spoil or catch fire easily if handled or stored incorrectly over long distances. Trucks offer a faster, door-to-door option for regional deliveries where rail lines do not go.
Tillotson’s elevator at Ensign, Kan.
Corn, and lots of it, will be imported into this market, as it has been to California. The beef cattle are still there and corn will supplement the dairies’ rations. That’s why there has been a big push to build train-unloaders. JDH (formerly J.D. Heiskel & Co.), 5V, a joint venture between Five Rivers Cattle Feeding and Viserion Grain, and Viterra, which on July 2 merged with Bunge, are building shuttle unloaders in this market. The Andersons, of Maumee, Ohio, purchased ADM’s interest in Skyland Grain for the same reason.
We’ll see rather quickly the change in cropping patterns. I suspect these changes will move all the way to Dodge City, Kan. and beyond.
And, yes, it will dramatically impact the grain elevators in this market.
Fifteen years of blogging has exposed us to various concepts for the re-use of old grain elevators. Proposals have ranged from interesting to daft.
Consider these examples:
The sleek Mayer-Osborn elevator in Tempe, Ariz. was going to be made into a hotel, which struck me as daft.
Two guys from Missouri had cast their eyes from big terminals in Buffalo, N.Y., to San Francisco’s threatened Pier 92, with a mind to developing vertical farms inside the tanks. It seems more practical to adapt other types of buildings for vertical farming.
In 2012, the Vinton Street terminal complex in Omaha received national attention after the annexes served as the canvas for a public art project; a nonprofit organization commissioned artists to create themed banners that were draped over the silos. Then someone proposed turning the complex into a climbing facility. The art was intriguing, but the climbing facility was daft.
Mayer-Osborn’s 1951 Tempe elevator
A few weeks ago, after we announced receipt of an archive of family papers and photos, Patrick Mason, director of business development for Dicon Construction, contacted us.
“Any chance they gave you anything related to the Vinton Silos? I am the owner. We are building apartments on the site but preserving some of the bins.”
We haven’t gotten to the blueprints yet, but there are among them records for the Vinton Street complex.
The Vinton Street complex, which was a signature project for Tillotson Construction Co., has been problematic for years. The Reader, which bills itself as “A Service of Nebraska Public Media,” reported “The old grain elevator and silos have sat empty for decades, attracting urban explorers, adventurous teens and an array of graffiti artists. In 2017, a man in his 50s fell about 30 feet, lying hurt with a broken leg until he was discovered at sunrise. In 2024, a teenage girl was seriously injured after falling 20 feet, and another teen was rescued after getting stuck.”
Latest news on the Dicon Construction’s adaptive re-use project is to knock down most of the elevator and annex, saw off a few tanks above ground level, and spent $56.2 million to build an apartment complex. A rendering shows a small building and the pool and patio resting atop the stubs of about 10 sawed-off tanks.
The Omaha City Council was considering Dicon’s application for $10.4 million in tax-increment financing.
The proposed project ranks somewhere between the high point so far, which is the public art project, and the low, which is the idea for a climbing facility. My wife lived two blocks from the elevator and points out the limited circulation of traffic in the neighborhood, which ends up pressing against Interstate 80.
Would hundreds of new residents improve or degrade the neighborhood?
All governmental units are perpetually hungry for added revenue. If the Omaha city council really wants to go ahead with Dicon’s unusual development, the members should have a midafternoon snack to tame their hunger and then think hard about the questions of public safety and the impact of a high-density development at this clogged-up location.
I don’t have an opinion on the appropriateness of the project, although it seems quirky. Nor am I one who thinks every grain elevator should be restored and made into a shrine, as we’re seeing in Broken Arrow, Okla.
One thing to say, though, is that I continue to marvel at the way a derelict grain elevator fires the imagination.
In haste to get out of southeastern Colorado and into southwestern Kansas, I snapped an extra picture of an elevator’s cupola labeled “Gano.” I did this even though it wasn’t a Tillotson elevator. Almost as an afterthought, I also grabbed two shots of downtown Pritchett, Colo., where three abandoned elevators stand including a Mayer-Osborn elevator.
It seemed I must be leaving a lot behind as we raced eastward.
What does Gano refer to? What happened to Pritchett? Why were the elevators abandoned?
George E. Gano was a grain dealer from Hutchinson, Kan. In a 1930 telegraph to U.S. President Herbert Hoover, he explains his situation as the government was competing against him and others like him:
“The Farmers National Corporation issued orders to buy wheat at stabilized price only from co-operative elevators. Personally have 50 good country elevators in southwest Kansas. Buy wheat direct from the farmers and have for 30 years. This order closes every elevator I have as stabilization price 12 to 15 cents above the open market in which I am forced to sell my grain. If this order stands this is simply confiscation of a business built up in a lifetime. You are appropriating money to this organization from which I contribute a good share in taxes. Not more than half of the farmers in this territory belong to co-operatives. This is the most vicious order ever issued by an agent of the United States government and should be rescinded at once. Am only too glad to assist in stabilizing the wheat price. Have no axe to grind with the Farmers corporation. All I ask is fair play and an even break. This not only applies to me but to every independent grain dealer in this section. Wish you would confer with Mr. Legge [Farm Board Chairman Alexander Legge] and explain matters.”
The George E. Gano Grain Co. was formed in 1924 out of another organization in Hutchinson, Kan. Gano was able to build this Pritchett elevator or reinforced concrete at a later date.
Bunge Co. bought out Gano in 1947.
Time magazine had observed in 1929 that “private grain commission men in Chicago and Minneapolis were fighting for their economic lives against the Farmers’ National Grain Corp. created and largely financed by the Federal Farm Board as a direct cooperative sales agency for grain growers.”
One assumes Gano was part of the fight.
As for Pritchett, we found this profile among the Denver Public Library’s digital collections:
“Occupied town, Pritchett is fading away. The railroad that once brought prosperity to Pritchett has been torn up miles east of the town. The town is a victim of drought and changing economic conditions. Pritchett is located in what was once the broomcorn belt, but plastic has replaced this natural material in brooms. Farmers have turned to growing wheat, milo and sorghum. Livestock covers the rangeland. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe formed a subsidiary, the Dodge City & Cimarron Valley Railway Company, which built a rail line from Kansas to Pritchett in 1926 that opened the following year. Originally, the rails were to reach three miles farther to Joycoy, and based on the prospects of rail service, Joycoy was founded. Merchants who had set up shop were given inducements by the railroad in the form of choice lots to move to Pritchett. The move from Joycoy to Pritchett included the post office, and nothing remains at Joycoy. Pritchett was named for Dr. Henry S. Pritchett, one of the Santa Fe’s directors. The new town grew rapidly with plenty of open farmland. Soon there were a couple of lumberyards, state bank, hardware stores and three grocery stores. With the construction of three hotels and the addition of a drug store, service stations, a bakery and clothing stores, the town was complete. A trio of grain elevators was constructed by the tracks on the south side of the business district. Pritchett even had its own radio station. With the Great Depression of the 1930s was combined with a sustained drought to create the Dust Bowl jobs disappeared along with the town’s only bank. The government sponsored Works Progress Administration brought in hundreds of jobs for those willing to work on roads, bridges and construction projects. This helped relieve Pritchett’s depression. Pritchett is located on U.S. 160 south of County Road DD and north of County Road CC.”
In 2017, a Facebook post by Jordan Palmer explained more eloquently:
Down near the southeast corner of Colorado sits the small town of Pritchett. A spur of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe [Railway] once ran here off the mainline that runs through nearby Springfield. Abandoned long ago, the tracks are gone, but weathered ties and broken crossbuck signs remain along the old grade. The most noticeable pieces, though, are the three grain elevators, standing abandoned on the south edge of town. They tower lonely over the high plains waiting for grains and trains, both of which will never come.
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.
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.
A lovely Monday in early May of 1934 proved perfect for festivities that attended dedication of the new Farmers Union elevator in Cedar Bluffs, Nebr.
After deciding in January to tear down its 48-year-old elevator and rebuild, the Farmers Union Co-Operative Association awarded the job to Van Ness Construction Co., of Omaha. A new 30,000-bushel elevator soon rose on the same site as the demolished elevator in Cedar Bluffs, a progressive Saunders County village. Photos by Reginald Tillotson, who worked for Van Ness along with his father Charles H. Tillotson, show the job starting in early spring before the trees budded out.
A news report explains how the dedication attracted an “immense” crowd and sparked a festival-like atmosphere on that pleasant occasion. Events started at 12.00 noon with free ice cream, cake, and coffee for more than 600 registrants.
“There was plenty to eat for everybody,” the New Cedar Bluffs Standard reported.
After dinner, races and contests were held for boys and girls, providing entertainment for the crowd and fun for the youngsters. Cash prizes were given out. The Midland College band traveled from nearby Fremont to play for everybody.
Mayor J. P. Jessen took the platform, welcomed folks, and introduced lots of dignitaries. H.D. Black received special recognition as manager of the elevator, and Alex McAuley—a 17-year veteran of the company—was assistant manager.
Next came the parade. A line of automobiles carried the officers and directors of the elevator association. A former employee of Farmers Union weighed in with the ceremonial first load of wheat to be received and stored away in the new house.
The entertainment continued as a quartet took the stage and sang old favorites. Following their numbers, a solo vocalist performed with piano accompaniment.
Other cash prizes were awarded, this time to L.A. Freeman, the association stockholder who had the largest family present. The jackpot for longest distance traveled went to Jim Broz, who made the journey from Prague, a town 16.5 miles away by road.
Speechifying was courtesy of Newton Gaines, of the University of Nebraska Extension service, who “as usual did a mighty fine job of it. He is an interesting and entertaining speaker.” Gaines himself was Midland College graduate devoted to the gospel of better farming and spread it with humor and philosophy in thousands of speeches.
The Cedar Bluffs day of parties ended with a free, well-attended dance at the opera house, and the next day was back to normal with the new elevator in service. The dedication day was long-remembered by the people. Even now we take away the message of an elevator’s importance within its community. Sometimes in daily life, the people came and went without even noticing it, but in fact it was the thing that held the community together.
