Story by Ronald Ahrens with photography by Mark Vaughn
Crossing from Utah into Colorado on U.S. 491 leaves a traveler with very little to look at. The landscape is wide open and featureless, giving extra significance to architectural wonders that may be encountered. As he left the Beehive State on this route and approached Dove Creek, Colo., our friend Mark Vaughn found his drifting thoughts interrupted by the stirring sight of a concrete elevator.
Mark Vaughn
Vaughn’s thoughts then turned to his favorite blog, Despite being overcome by mad inspiration, he kept his car on the road while taking a picture through the windshield.
As West Coast editor for Autoweek, keeping cars on the road has been a Vaughn specialty for thirty-seven years. His interest in elevators is a more recent development and redounds to our benefit.
With contoured sides, an overhanging brow, and twin rectangular windows as “eyes,” the bare concrete structure at Dove Creek looks like a tall, broad-shouldered robot. Studying the results of Vaughn’s scouting leaves us marveling at the concave cupola, which is of a rare design.
Who built this elevator? And when? The answer could well be on the cast-iron plate covering the manhole. This plate is seen near the bottom of the left-side tank. We wouldn’t be surprised if embossed lettering names Mayer-Osborn Construction Co., of Denver, as the builder. Mayer-Osborn had incorporated curvature up top into its design vocabulary during the company’s early 1950s heyday.
Alas, Vaughn’s high rate of speed precluded his stopping in order to climb up and read the plate.
Our call to High Country Elevators, Inc., of Dove Creek, has not been returned. Nor has anything turned up in our search of newspaper archives.
Dryland bean production is big in southwestern Colorado, and elevator capacity at Dove Creek is devoted to pinto beans. If indeed this was a Mayer-Osborn job, we can’t say our grandfathers always built grain elevators. Sometimes they built bean elevators.
The Dove Creek Press probably holds answers to our questions, but that newspaper is archived on microfilm at the Colorado Historical Society. Because Vaughn didn’t stop there either, we won’t know anytime soon.
Tillotson Construction Co. completed an elevator at Jackson, Minn., seven miles north of the Iowa state line, and it remains in use. We would like to say more about its history, but too little is clear. The completion photo seen above comes from Tillotson archives. “Jackson, Minn” is scrawled across the back in pencil without a date.
Attempts to access Jackson County Pilot newspaper archives failed.
Additionally, there’s no entry for the Jackson elevator in company records, although there is an entry for 100,000 bushels of storage in 1949. Here’s the link to all specs from that job.
Tillotson elevator at the center in Jackson, Minn. Photo by Brad Perry
Instead of historical details of the elevator’s construction, we offer some perspective about what makes grain storage in Minnesota and the Dakotas a different matter as compared to other Grain Belt states just to the south, namely, Iowa and Nebraska, where concrete elevators abound.
Ronald: Do you have a take on why Tillotson built only a couple of elevators in Minnesota?
Brad: There were, and still are, some old-line construction companies in Minnesota that built a number of elevators in both Minnesota and Iowa.
Ronald: As we go north, concrete seems to lose its advantages.
Brad: Wood elevators were still being built in the 1970s in Minnesota and the Dakotas. I was always told that wood is a much better insulator (Duh!) and maintains grain quality better in cold climates.
Wood elevator complex at Minnesota Lake, Minn. Photo by Brad Perry
Wood elevator at Bricelyn, Minn. Photo by Brad Perry
Brad (continued): All over Minnesota you’ll find 100,000- and even 200,000-bushel wood houses and especially annexes. Concrete in Jackson makes sense—it’s about on the Iowa line. I can still remember a wood house for the Sisseton, S.D. co-op that we financed in 1976 at over $5 per bushel, which was two times the cost of concrete at that time.
Ronald: I went through Sisseton once. It’s near the North Dakota line. That’s as close as I ever came to North Dakota.
Brad: Another reason could also be due to livestock. Other than the southern two tiers of counties, Minnesota producers fed their corn to dairy cattle, hogs, and turkeys so that somewhat less of the collective storage was required. Minnesota is still the number-one state for turkey production.
So boasted George Bacus, Northwest Grain Co. boss, when he announced in June of 1947 that Tillotson Construction Co. was about to start a 99,000-bushel single-leg elevator in Rushville, Nebr.
It would be based on the plan established in 1941 at Sheldon, Iowa with four tanks measuring 14.5 feet in diameter and reaching 100 feet in height.
The tab for this elevator “of the most modern design” would come to $60,000. Details of the financing were not reported.
“We have long felt the need for more storage capacity and are quadrupling the grain facilities here because we want to keep Rushville the most attractive grain market in Sheridan county,” Bacus told the Sheridan County Star.
Other towns–Gordon, Hay Springs, and Clinton–could eat their hearts out.
The Tillotson elevator would rise on the site where the old Wolvington elevator was being torn down. Walter Wolvington, an auctioneer who went into the grain business, first partnered with Lester Davis in the purchase of the Aplan elevator in Rushville. Their next move, reported in the May 15, 1925 issue of The American Elevator and Grain Trade, was to buy the Nye Schneider elevator.
The partnership may have dissolved. After more than two decades, Wolvington sold to Bacus, who since 1939 had managed Farmers Elevator in Hay Springs. A big fire at that facility led him to go into business for himself.
In a display ad of Sept. 27, 1945, Wolvington wrote:
“Having sold my elevator I want to take this means of thanking the people of this community for their business and their loyal support during the twenty-two years I have been in the grain and coal business. Your friendship and your patronage are deeply appreciated. George Bacus, the new owner, is well experienced, friendly, and co-operative and will serve you efficiently and honestly. I will continue in my auctioneer work. See me for dates.”
Combined with the Aplan elevator and Rushville Roller Mills, total capacity in Rushville would increase from 40,000 to 130,000 bushels.
Not only was it the size of the new elevator, but also the speed of operation that impressed everybody. Thanks to the 20-horsepower motor in the cupola, the pace of boxcar loading would rise from 500 to 2,200 bushels per hour.
Construction was expected to take ninety days.
In Part II of this three-part Rushville series, we detailed the important steps in construction, and indeed the work was mostly wrapped up in October. The exception, though, was the electrically operated man lift, which was only installed in February of 1948. The Star’s description is worth repeating:
“The man lift is a miniature electric elevator which will provide transportation from the basement of the elevator to the head house. It will save employees of the local grain company a lot of strenuous climbing as it is necessary to go up to the head house several times a day when grain is being loaded out. The elevator has a small wire cage, about the size of a phone booth and operates exactly like elevators in Omaha department stores. A two horsepower electric motor at the top operates a steel cable which lifts the elevator cage at the rate of ninety feet a minute. The complete trip of 110 feet from basement to headhouse takes just over a minute and is a good deal easier than climbing the iron rung stairs fastened in the side of the elevator shaft.”
The Rushville elevator served Sheridan County farmers for decades. Now, after Kristen’s visit on May 23, we figure the facility is out of service. A couple of calls to Rushville to inquire about the present status produced nothing on the present ownership. But Kristen reports:
“Windows are broken out of the headhouse, and the scale house needs paint and appears unused. Concrete foundations remain after several round bins were removed. It’s hard to tell what they were. The metal sheds and round bins seem to be in use and in good condition. When I was there, the place was deserted, but in May that is to be expected.”
“The foundation is getting bad on it,” Wellnitz said.
After the admiring description of the foundation in Part I, which noted the slab was a foot-and-a-half thick with 97 cubic yards of concrete, it’s hard to believe there’s been degradation. Yet it’s pretty sure the elevator faces its 80th birthday in a state of limbo.
June of 1947 was the wettest on record with more than seven inches of rain across western Nebraska. Hail destroyed an estimated one million acres of winter wheat statewide. Beans and other irrigated crops in the North Platte Valley took a hit. Cornfields were written off, hay spoiled in the fields, and uncut alfalfa became woody.
Even though Chicago and North Western Railway chief dispatcher Louis Remillard had accumulated 70 boxcars for grain on the Chadron-Long Pine division, the Northwest Grain Co. in Rushville found incoming wheat testing above 14 percent moisture content and refused one load after another.
Besides the unusually lush pastures, though, there was a positive effect. At Rushville, the rains softened the ground to the benefit of Tillotson Construction Co. foreman Earl Connors and his crew as foundation work started around July 1.
In blanket coverage for the Sheridan County Star, editor Phil Gottschalk documented the drama of construction foot by foot. Forms started to rise from the ground at 1.00 a.m. on Sept. 5 after a delay in accumulating enough materials. Before long, work had started on the cupola (headhouse).
By Oct. 2, the elevator was promised to be ready soon. Whitewashing started next, and the detailed description of the “dazzling coat of white ‘mix'” is worth noting:
“It couldn’t be called a paint because there is no paint in the concoction which consists of white cement, volcanic ash, salt, and several other chemicals. The mix will waterproof and seal the outside of the elevator as well as improving its general appearance. The coating will get whiter in a few months as the sun and the salt bleach it out.”
Tillotson foreman Earl Connors expected job completion by Oct. 21.
After operations started, the new elevator received praise for storing grain that would otherwise have been kept on the ground.
“Practically all of the 40,000 bushels of grain which were laying on the ground in Sheridan county on October 15 have now been safely stored in farm bins or commercial elevators. The Northwest Grain Company elevator in Rushville was completed in time to absorb nearly all the grain in this area which had been left outside because of a previous lack of storage space. Since the new elevator began taking grain steadily about October 27 over eleven thousand bushels a day have been received for storage. Grain has been arriving at the rate of about a thousand bushels a day, for example on Monday of this week 1,525 bushels were received. Most of this grain is coming from Oglala and Pine Ridge territory as practically all of the Sheridan county grain has already been stored or sold. ‘The elevator holds 100,000 bushels, so we are a long way from being full yet,’ Mr. Bacus said Tuesday. He anticipates quite a rush on grain receipts immediately after the first of the year but believes the new elevator will be able to handle all that comes to Rushville.”
While editor Gottschalk was pleased, the Star’s columnist Mabel Grimes–whose thoughts open the previous Rushville post–had nothing whatsoever to say about the handsome whitewashed elevator. And in 1952, when she went to Chicago and covered the Republican National Convention for the Star, the C&NW budgeted $10,000 for installation of a signal light at the intersection just west of the depot. Frank Cook’s flagging service was no longer needed.
Our third post on Rushville will go into the background of ownership and the transformational nature of the new elevator.
The Chicago and North Western Railway depot in Rushville, Nebr. finally got a fresh coat of paint in the summer of 1947. Paint and painters had been scarce during the war years, and the depot needed attention. Local newspaper columnist Mabel Grimes explained that people thought such an important place of business shouldn’t look so shabby, but a touch-up job had been practically impossible.
“Now, she shines like the morning sun–a lovely bright red!” Grimes wrote in her “Swingin’ up Main Street” column for the Sheridan County Star.
At the same time, there was another forward step, a new sale barn, but it made Grimes worry about traffic at the railroad crossing.
“The hopes of the City Council for a ‘ding-dong’ signal at the crossing have faded—at least temporarily. In its place, Frank Cook sits (or stands) and waves his little red flag! Traffic will undoubtedly increase mightily [with] the Sale Barn and new Elevator across the tracks. And the little red flag might wear out—in time. We do need a loud signal there.”
Cook didn’t have to man the crossing all that often, though, so his flag would have had a long life expectancy. The Cowboy Line of the C&NW carried just a few trains per day on this route to Chadron. Nevertheless, the thought of him in his duster during stormy conditions generates respect.
The elevator in question in the northwestern Nebraska town was the 99,000-bushel single-leg monument then under construction by Tillotson Construction Co.
Foreman Earl Connors oversaw a crew that mixed seasoned Tillotson hands with fresh local talent. As the project got into full swing, the Star noted on July 10 that Leon Lupher, Jr. and his wife had come to Rushville to work on the elevator, and on July 4, their parents arrived to visit from Minatare (home of another Tillotson elevator) and Northport, bringing “well filled” picnic baskets, the contents to be enjoyed in the shade at the park.
In its July 17 edition, the Star noted: “Elevator Goes up Fast.”
“Construction of the new 100,000 bushel elevator is two weeks ahead of schedule, G.A. Bacus, manager of the Northwest Grain Company, said Wednesday. The elevator is ahead of schedule because the construction company found the digging of the basement and boot pit to be much speedier than expected, the ground being soft and easily worked. This week a concrete slab a foot and a half thick was poured to form the basement of the 45 foot square structure. The slab contains 97 cubic yards of concrete—about equivalent to two railroad gondola car loads of concrete. The slab is being made thick because it will bear three thousand tons pressure from the empty elevator and six thousand tons pressure when the elevator is full. This means that there will be a load of nearly three tons to the square foot on the concrete slab base. Approximately 55 tons of reinforcing steel and tremendous amounts of sand, gravel, and cement will be used in completing the 125 foot high structure. Wooden forms for the four large corner bins, each holding 14,000 bushels have been completed ready for installation.”
An editorial in the same issue lauded the backers of the sale barn and elevator.
“Every load of grain or herd of cattle sold in Rushville will enable the Rushville businessman to expand his operations, pay more taxes, contribute more money to community projects, and build Rushville into an even more attractive trade center and place to live.”
We’ve never found stronger testimonials to the fact that an elevator increased not only prosperity but also happiness.
Our next post will document foot by foot the rise of the Rushville elevator.
Pages 4 and 4A of the Tillotson construction record document a stretch in 1949 when the Tillotson Construction Co. showed its stuff as an experienced builder of reinforced-concrete grain elevators, producing 2,423,200 bushels of new capacity.
These pages give detailed specifications of jobs at a range of locations from Hooker, Okla. to Dalhart, Tex. They show Tillotson was particularly busy in Iowa, building at 11 locations there. Besides Iowa, there were commissions in Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, and Minnesota.
Here’s the complete list of locations: Hooker, Okla.; Paulinna, Iowa; Hordville, Nebr.; Churdan, Iowa; Glidden, Iowa; Dike, Iowa; Randall, Iowa; West Bend, Iowa; Sanborn, Iowa; Gilmore City, Iowa; Montevideo, Minn.; Pocahontas, Iowa; Jackson, Minn.; Pierson, Iowa; Clare, Iowa; Dalhart, Tex.
Jobs ranged from 50,000 bushels at Paulinna – a commission labeled “elevator only” – to a single-leg house of 310,000 bushels at the enduringly important location of Dalhart.
Jim Hamman contributed the exquisite black-and-white photo of Paulinna seen at top. Built on the Minatare, Nebr. plan of 1941, it had two tanks measuring 15.5 feet in diameter and reaching 85 feet in height.
Dalhart, Tex. in 2018 by Ronald Ahrens
Despite the “elevator only” notation, the Paulinna listing includes another note: “Whse 32’x50’ 120 cu yd.” We interpret this to mean a warehouse for flat storage was built in addition to the elevator, and its construction required the additional 120 cubic yards of concrete.
A note on Glidden is hard to decipher: “Cups @ 12” O.C. @ Glidden “Job Error.”
In our grain elevator studies, we always keep in mind the danger to workers. We’ve reported construction-site accidents, some resulting in death. Never had we heard of anything as bad as the accident at Albert City, Iowa on Friday, June 19, 1970.
Tillotson Construction Co. built a 252,000-bushel elevator at Albert City in 1954. My unclesMichael Tillotson and the late Charles J. Tillotson worked on that job and have shared memories. The elevator was built with eight tanks measuring 18 feet in diameter and reaching 120 feet in height.
Naturally, the question arises: Did the accident occur at an annex to the Tillotson elevator. No, the Des Moines Register’s photo shows another elevator with two storage annexes.
In any case, the 1970 tragedy hits close to home.
Newspaper accounts explain that the top of a tank collapsed as a crew was finishing construction, and the men–ranging in age from 18 to 49 years old–plunged to their deaths. Another man who was at work in the bottom of the tank was seriously injured. Extricating the victims, who were trapped amid steel and wet concrete, was a monumental challenge.
Des Moines Tribune, Saturday, June 20, 1970:
A Mason City man remained in serious condition Saturday in a Storm Lake hospital with injuries suffered Friday [June 19] when a roof platform atop a concrete grain elevator collapsed, plunging seven other men 130 feet to their deaths.
Donald Peterson, 48, who suffered internal injuries and shock, was working on the ground inside the elevator when the platform collapsed. He was buried by wet concrete and falling debris.
The seven dead construction workers are:
James Jorstad, of Hillsboro, N.D. and his brother Ronald, 23, of Cummings, N.D.; Virgil Buchholtz, 27, of Albert City; Michael McCormick, 18, or Rembrandt; Kenneth Andre, 40, of Fenton; Roger Mitchell, 49, of Mankato, Minn.; and Steven Mangold, 29, of Linn Grove.
Duane Rasmussen, 32, of Ada, Minn., construction superintendent, said two other workers escaped,
Leif Rodal, 60, of Oslo, Minn., was on a catwalk leading to an adjacent elevator also under construction, and stayed on the catwalk.
E. Frank Klahs, Jr., of Rembrandt was on the platform when it collapsed but grabbed the outer edge of the elevator and hand-crawled 30 feet to a catwalk.
Rasmussen said he was on the ground a few feet from the elevator when the collapse occurred.
“I have no idea what caused it,” he said.
Crews from the T.E. Ibberson Co., of Minneapolis have been building the twin concrete-and-steel elevators for the Farmers Co-operative Elevator Co. here since April. The structures are 130 feet tall and 55 feet in diameter, with concrete walls eight inches thick.
The roofs were to have been completed Friday.
Rasmussen said, “We had poured about 30 yards of concrete for the roof before [the accident].”
That amount of concrete would weigh more than 60 tons.
One workman said the “whole platform gave way after beams on one side slipped down and everything came tumbling down.”
Rasmussen said the men killed in the fall were buried under a four-foot pile of debris.
Rescue operations were hampered because the only ground-level opening to the elevator was blocked by rubble that had to be removed by digging.
A call to AgState Cooperative put us in touch with Marc Mears, chief operating officer. He says AgStates runs both Albert City elevators. The Tillotson elevator continues to operate well, and Google Maps shows it looking well, too.
“The facility is referred to as the North House and is used primarily as a place to unload beans during times that most of the inbound truck activity is corn unloads,” Mears says. “This allows the bean trucks to unload more quickly and avoids having to switch one of the pits away from corn at the South House.”
Given the anecdotes of my uncles’ personal experiences, and the catastrophe at the nearby complex, the North House in Albert City is one of the most significant elevators in the portfolio.
In the previous post, I expressed uncertainty on the fate of the curved cupola atop Tillotson’s 208,000-bushel elevator built at Montezuma, Kan. in 1948.
Everything else about the elevator matched a 1954 photo, but the cupola appeared to have been modified since. One might even say mutilated.
The original cupola measured 21.5 feet long, 47.5 feet wide, and 46 feet high. Maybe it wasn’t commodious enough to meet a need for higher capacity.
Two readers responded to the post, offering their explanations about the situation.
Longtime reader Chandler Thomas steps forward with this analysis:
“From the photos provided we can ascertain these things. The concrete headhouse/cupola has been removed and a steel structure installed in its place. Both bucket elevators/“legs” are in place, which can be seen on one of the night photos.”
Chandler Thomas continues:
I designed and constructed several upgrade projects to Tillotson elevators.
Commonly, the first issue was to increase leg capacity. There was ample space in the leg wells to accommodate a higher capacity leg. Doing this normally required removal of the pothole-type distributor and replacing it with a double-rotary distributor as is shown in the photos.
In a few of my projects, the new distributor was larger in diameter than the headhouse width.
I suspect, since this elevator does not show any signs of an explosion, that the headhouse was selectively demolished, a steel structure was constructed in its place to support the new distributor, and legs and the lower portion of the steel structure were enclosed to help keep rain out of the bins from the locations where spouts entered them and from the manholes.
Meanwhile, reader Robert Summers gives a different account:
“Grain dust explosion damage circa 1980 required building a new head house, and by that time OSHA specs encouraged or mandated leg motors and drives not being enclosed to minimize risk of major damage from grain dust explosions.”
We’re grateful to our readers for sharing their expertise
By one analysis, the trend nowadays is toward a leaner connection between farmers and export markets. By loading grain-only unit trains at facilities close to home, farmers can avoid the step of sending their grain to terminal elevators in port cities. Here, contributor Brad Perry taps his career in banking and finance to share some reflections on the increasingly large scale of elevator facilities in keeping with demand for more efficient grain handling.
Brad: Through the 1970s, we were still building 250,000-bushel workhouses and 500,000-bushel annexes, with 18- to 24-foot-diameter bins. These were being built by Jarvis, Quad States, Jordan, Mid States, and a few others. That makes me really appreciate the 354,000-bushel houses your family built in 1954.
Ronald: They built 350,000 bushels at Farnsworth, Tex. in 1946!
Brad: Farmers Coop Business Association, of Shelby, Neb. built maybe the first “corn-soybean” elevator in Nebraska. It had 750,000 bushel capacity, four tanks measuring 48 feet in diameter with interstices. It was designed for export unit-train loading. This was followed by the Tamora-Staplehurst Cooperative (in Seward County, Neb.) building a 1-million-plus-bushel facility. After that, it took us a while, but we figured out that larger bins maybe made sense! Now as you look across Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and South Dakota, you see 105-foot-diameter steel bins of 750,000-bushel capacity and now 120-foot-diameter bins (1.2 million plus). For concrete, Tamora, Neb. is a great example. Hooked to the elevator is a 400,000-bushel tank, a 600,000-bushel tank, and now a 1-million-bushel tank.
Tillotson’s classic elevator at Pocahontas, Iowa, by Brad Perry
Brad: It’s been much more difficult for Kansas cooperatives to unify for the benefit of their producer-owners. There are several reasons including the terminal grain structure. There is plenty of shipping capacity for trains in Kansas, but it’s at the terminal rather than close to the producer. This has been changing with the new shuttle loaders that have been built in the state. Some of the most significant ones (Courtland, Frankfort, Hanover, Canton) were either built by Nebraska cooperatives or as joint ventures with larger companies.
Ronald: I’m turning to the internet for a definition: A shuttle loader is a high-capacity industrial machine used to rapidly transfer bulk materials such as grain into 100-car freight trains. Here’s the link to a scholarly paper co-authored by CoBank Research Fellow Mykel Taylor of Kansas State University that addresses the question of efficiency.
Brad: I was involved with four grain-marketing LLCs and joint ventures where several cooperatives combined their grain operations into a single license. A central staff did all of the merchandising, set the bids, did the grain accounting and managed grain flows. Net grain revenues were then passed back to the member-owner cooperatives based on bushels handled at each facility. These organizations were AgMark at Concordia, Kan., Team Marketing at Moundridge, Kan., CoMark in southern Kansas, and Equity Marketing Alliance at Enid, Okla. AgMark still exists, with CVA (Central Valley Ag) at York, Neb. as the dominant owner. Team Marketing has dissolved. CoMark and Equity Marketing have merged. In hindsight, while the groups substantially improved producers’ grain bids and cooperative earnings, they also allowed the member-cooperatives to resist change.
Rail car mover
Ronald: What strikes me is that the elevators themselves are the emblems of these organizations that otherwise have few physical manifestations.
Brad: There was another joint marketing group proposed for western Kansas. This included the cooperatives at Syracuse, Johnson, Elkhart, and Ulysses. The entity that materialized from those discussions was similar … but different. ADM Grain got involved and a whole new structure evolved that included the cooperatives (less Elkhart) and what were ADM/Collingwood facilities in western and southwestern Kansas. This included the ADM facilities in Johnson’s trade area, and a bunch further south, including Hugoton, the seat of Stevens County. Over time, several more cooperatives merged in.
Trouble at Sunray, Brad Perry photoMore trouble at Sunray, Brad Perry photo
Brad: I was told once that it took as many as 12 employees to load a train at one of the monster Kansas terminals. That means one in the locomotive or a smaller car mover; another two or three opening and then closing car hatches; two others in the headhouse running a hopper scale that prints tickets; a grader; one boss supervising everything; and at least four on bicycles in the tunnel beneath the storage annex. The tunnel guys are getting their instructions via radio from the boss, and being told, “Crack open bin 118 a quarter turn.” They are actually blending coming out of the annex bins onto the belt. It takes several days to load a 110-car train out of most of these monsters.
Ronald: You had mentioned in a previous discussion that, at the country elevators, it was a couple of boxcars at a time.
Brad: Modern train loaders? Three or maybe four employees load a 110-car train in 12 hours. There’s one in the locomotive, one or 2 opening and closing hatches, and one in a control booth half-way up the side of the elevator. If it’s being shipped with origin USDA grades, then there is also a USDA grader on site. The employee in the booth is controlling the entire elevator— legs, gates, conveyors, etc.
Ronald: In a photo I took at Springfield, Colo., I didn’t know what to call the grotesque appendage at the end of the annex, marring the beautiful Tillotson elevator. This appendage incorporated a booth. You informed me it was for grain loading.
Ronald: You were impressed when reader Michael Petersen utilized AI to I.D. the unlabeled photo of an elevator, which turned out to be Tillotson’s job at Helena, Okla.
Brad: Glad the Helena mystery was solved! I looked— been there but didn’t have any pictures. The current view from Google Earth is very typical of Kansas and Oklahoma elevators. The co-op added a McPherson jump-form tank at the end and put a leg and another dump between the annex and McPherson tank. The tank is probably 200,000 to 250,000 capacity. I’m betting the leg is either 7,500 or 10,000 bushels per hour.
Ronald: Some additional studies of the construction record show that Tillotson returned twice to Helena, each time to build more storage.
Brad: This high-speed approach has been both good and bad. It’s the standard approach that companies like Scoular have used to upgrade to shuttle-train-loading capability. In their case, it’s normally a 30,000-bph leg with a bulk weigher. You can see this at Downs, in north-central Kansas, Venango in southwestern Nebraska, and additional locations. The bad side is, many slip-formed tubes weren’t designed with enough bearing pressure for this speed of loading. I’ve seen major holes blown right out through the side of the tube that these higher capacity legs were dumping into.
If a wood elevator ever looked toylike, it was the one in Elkhart, Kan. As seen in an aerial photo, it resembles a model railroader’s prop.
In 1946, Tillotson Construction Co. built an imposing 212,500-bushel elevator of reinforced concrete as part of a post-World War Two building boom. As in the auto industry, which stopped building passenger cars and light trucks for more than three years, scarce resources curtailed activities in the civilian construction sector until the troops were coming home.
Tillotson had built five elevators in 1941, none in 1942 and 1943, and one in 1944.
By 1945, the Omaha company regathered its crews to build seven elevators in 1945–all in Oklahoma and Texas. The next year, there were at least seven more. One was in Wellsburg, Iowa; four were in Oklahoma, and two in Kansas: Ensign (240,000 bushels) and Elkhart. By that time, Tillotson–which started building concrete elevators in 1939–had already built seven elevators, all in Oklahoma and Texas, of greater than 200,000-bushel capacity. The largest of them was a whopping 340,000 bushels at Farnsworth, Tex. The ability to go upscale with the concept and execution of these elevators remains impressive more than eighty years later.
Tillotson hired Potter Studio, of Lamar, Colo., for an aerial shot of Elkhart. On Facebook, I found a post by Timothy K. Coy, who wrote:
My grandmother, her husband Gerald and my parents S.D. and Bette Coy, operated Potter Studio in Lamar from about 1946 to 1955, when Elizabeth Potter retired and the business was sold.
The aerial job must have been one of the studio’s first important commissions.
I have Page 1 of the construction record but lack Page 1A with full specs. Nevertheless, we know Elkhart was built on the revised plan established in Medford, Okla. in 1941. The record isn’t entirely specific about Medford, but I think there were 10 tanks measuring 15.5 feet in diameter and 22 bins. I have no information on whether the job included the office and service buildings.
Until 1945, the record included costs. Medford was built for $41,289.37. While the total isn’t available for Elkhart, there’s a note that the labor rate was 80 cents per hour, with overtime ringing in at $1.25.
Elkhart is situated along U.S. 56 in the southwestern corner of Kansas, bordering Oklahoma’s Panhandle. On our road trip, we were unable to detour to Elkhart but did go to Satanta, which is about 60 miles northwest on that road. The Satanta elevator is one of the first, or perhaps the very first, where Tillotson rounded the corners of the cupola. This Elkhart elevator is a good example of the early rectangular style.
I wish there were more to say about Elkhart but can point out that it previously came up more than a decade ago in a post on this blog. I’d chatted with a California neighbor and learned she had just visited Elkhart. She shared pictures, taken from the car, of “a funny building.”
What was a novelty to her was an awe-inspiring symbol of progress to the people of Morton County, Kansas in 1946, leaving the wood elevator next door to sing the Cimarron Valley Outmoded Blues.
