Category Archives: Their Work

A view of early preparations at the foundation of Alta Cooperative’s elevator

by baggyparagraphs
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Photo from the Neil A. Lieb Collection

In a July 22 telephone conversation, Neil A. Lieb, who worked for Tillotson Construction Company from 1949 to 1951, described for us the elements of this photo, taken in the spring of 1950 during the earliest stage of work on the Alta Cooperative elevator, in Alta, Iowa.

  • The slab and rebar box in middle is the pit, covered with wood to leave a hole in concrete.
  • The horizontal box in the background is for the elevator’s leg, the critical motor-driven pulley-and-belt mechanism with attached scoops that lift the grain from the pit to the headhouse for distribution to bins and silos.
  • Planking is to provide a smooth course for the wheelbarrow in order to transport and dump freshly mixed concrete.
  • The dirt in the background came from the excavation.
  • In the center, the larger black tank on left contains acetylene and the smaller one holds oxygen, for fueling a torch, presumably to cut rebar.
  • The concrete mixer (upper left) had the capacity of one-half or one cubic yard of concrete.

Editor’s note: Although there is some distortion, the upper-right corner appears to show a worker who is bent at the waist and leaning away from the camera.

 

 

Emerging Terrain’s banners come down from the storage silos at Vinton Street

by baggyparagraphs

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By Ronald Ahrens

As these pages from the July 22 edition of the Omaha World-Herald show, the community art project that adorned storage silos at Tilltoson Construction Company’s landmark Vinton Street elevator have been taken down.

The story by Casey Logan explains that various exigencies combined to signal “time’s up” for the displays.

We were fortunate to have visited in 2012 and seen them for ourselves.

And now we ask what’s next for this massive terminal complex?

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Excavating with explosives led to trouble on Tillotson’s Alta, Iowa, elevator

by baggyparagraphs

 

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Story by Neil A. Lieb and photos from the Neil A. Lieb Collection

I do not know exactly when the Alta job started, but I think it was in March or early April of 1950. At that time of the year the ground in Iowa is frozen two to three feet deep. Since the ground was frozen, the bulldozer could not dig the hole needed for the slab. So it was decided they would use dynamite to loosen the soil. I guess Superintendent Bill Russell had this approved by the town fathers and the police and fire chef. 

Neil A. Lieb, left, and Blaine Bell worked on the Alta, Iowa, elevator in 1950.

Neil A. Lieb, left, and Blaine Bell worked on the Alta, Iowa, elevator in 1950.

Now, remember, Alta is a very small town, maybe 900 to 1000 residents then.

It was decided to use one-quarter stick of dynamite at a depth of 18 to 24 inches. The first charge was set off and it loosened about six to seven feet of dirt so they repeated this procedure every six to eight feet.

After setting off several charges, someone decided that if one-quarter stick worked so well, one-half stick would loosen a bigger area. So they used one-half  stick for the next charge. When it was set off, the explosion was so loud that Bill came charging out of his office to find why at about the same time as the woman across the street came out of her house screaming that her china cabinet had fallen over and all her good china had been broken. 

Within a few minutes the mayor, fire and police chiefs, and most of the town council members showed up. I guess Bill was very busy trying explain. Once he’d calmed everyone down, they all left.

That was the end of the dynamiting. The next day everyone was swinging a pick.

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Newly discovered photos show Tillotson’s big Alta, Iowa, grain elevator in 1950

by baggyparagraphs

Neil A. Lieb collection

Photos contributed by Neil A. Lieb

Of the slew of elevators Tillotson Construction Company put up in 1950, the one at Alta, Iowa, could have been considered a typical job, although the photo above shows that a sign company must have gone to work sinking anchors in the headhouse for the raised lettering. Built in the small Buena Vista County town that sits at the highest point on the Chicago-Illinois Railroad in its crossing of the Hawkeye State, the elevator followed Tillotson’s established Palmer Plan, with eight tanks of 18 feet in diameter rising to 115 feet in height. There was a 13-foot-wide driveway passing through the house in an opening 15 feet high under four split bins. An additional note about the Palmer plan says, “Extra dist @ Cupola and on Cleaner Floor,” and we take the abbreviation to mean distribution.

Formwork as the Alta Cooperative's elevator rises in a continuous pour. Note the driveway door.

Formwork as the Alta Cooperative’s elevator rises in a continuous pour. Note the driveway door.

Here is the full list of specifications:

Capacity per Plans (with Pack) 246,070 bushels

Capacity per foot of height 2640 bushels

Reinforced concrete/plans (Total) 2082 cubic yards

Plain concrete (hoppers) 49.6 cubic yards

Reinforcing steel/Plans (includes jack rods) 112.4 tons

Average steel per cubic yard of reinforced concrete 107/96 pounds

Steel & reinforced concrete itemized per plans

Below main slab 9419 lb/91 cu yd

Main slab 32,077 lb/272 cu yd

Drawform walls 142,070 lb/1424 cu yd

Work & driveway floor (including columns) 1485 lb/30 cu yd

Deep bin bottoms 6682 lb/47 cu yd

Overhead bin bottoms 7929 lb/40 cu yd

Bin roof (corner) 10150 lb/51 cu yd

Scale floor (complete) none

Cupola walls 9655 lb/88 cu yd

Distributor floor 1912 lb/10 cu yd

Cupola roof 2753 lb/15 cu yd

Miscellaneous (boot, leg, head, track sink, steps) 2560 lb/13 cu yd (a note here in the plans says “Cleaner floor”)

Elevator construction continued around the clock in a spectacle that must have awed the surrounding community.

Elevator construction continued around the clock in a spectacle that must have awed the community.

Construction details 

Main slab dimensions (Drive length first dimen.) 60 x 73.5 feet

Main slab area (actual outside on ground) 4101 sqare feet

Weight of reinforced (total) concrete (4000#/cu yd + steel) 4276 tons

Weight of plan concrete (hoppers 4000#/cu yd) 99 tons

Weight hopper fill sand (3000#/cu yd) 708 tons

Weight of grain (at 60# per bushel) 7380 tons

Weight of structural steel & machinery 20 tons

Gross weight loaded 12,483 tons

Bearing pressure 3.04 tons per sq ft

Main slab thickness 24 inches

Main slab steel (bent) 1 in diameter at 7 inch o.c.

Tank steel at bottom (round tanks) 5/8 inch diameter at 6 inch o.c.

Lineal feet of drawform walls 762 feet including exterior

Height of drawform walls 115 feet

Pit depth below main slab 15 feet 0 inches

Cupola dimensions (W x L x Ht.) 23 x 61.5 x 39 feet

Pulley centers 161 feet

Number of legs 1

Distributor floor Yes

Track sink Yes

Full basement Yes

Electrical room Yes

Driveway width–clear 13 feet

Dump grate size 3 – 9 x 6 feet

Columns under tanks size 20 inches square

Boot — leg & head Concrete

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Machinery Details 

Boot pulley 72 x 14 x 2 3/16 inches

Head pulley 72 x 14 x 3 15/16 inches

R.P.M. head pulley 42 rpm

Belt 14 inch 6 ply Calumet

Cups 12 x 6 inch at 8 inch o.c. Howell

Head drive 40 horsepower

Theoretical leg capacity (cup manufacturer rating) 8440 bushels per hour

Actual leg capacity (80 percent of theoretical) 6750 bushels per hour

The finished elevator, before the headhouse windows were installed and whitewashing was done.

The finished elevator, before whitewashing and installation of the headhouse windows.

Horsepower required for leg (based on above actual capacity plus 15 percent for motor) 33 hp

Man lift 1.5 horsepower electric

Load out scale Two 25 bushel Rich.

Load out spout 10.75 inch W.C.

Cupola spouting 10-inch diameter 14 gauge

Truck lift 7.5 horsepower Ehr

Dust collector system Fan → Dust bin

Driveway doors Two overhead rolling

Conveyor 14-inch R.H. 3 hp.

Picking up the thread on screw jacks unravels some elevator fundamentals

by baggyparagraphs

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By Ronald Ahrens

These plans found in the Tillotson Construction Company archives show details of jack screw assembly and formwork, which were essential in the continuous pour method of building elevators, and they contain the key to unlocking the story of how screw jacks came into use.

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This key in is in the all-caps lettering “FOWELL SINKS JACK AND FORM.” A Web search reveals that “Fowell” is misspelled. Russell H. Folwell and William R. Sinks were Chicagoans who were granted patent 855452 for Apparatus for Raising Concrete Forms.

The patent application, filed with drawings (seen right) on Feb. 7, 1907, and awarded on June 4, 1907, stated,  “The invention relates to means for erecting concrete structures, and more particularly to apparatus for supporting and raising the forms or molds and the staging employed in building vertical concrete walls.”

The next year, the Canadian Stewart Company Ltd., of Montreal, started building the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway’s 3.5-million-bushel terminal elevator in Thunder Bay, Ont. Folwell was chief design engineer; Sinks supervised the construction. Work was finished in 1910.

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Docomomo Canada-Ontario, which is part of Docomomo International, the organization that advocates for the documentation and conservation of buildings, sites, and neighborhoods of the Modern Movement, says this:

“Folwell and Sinks experimented with their lifting device for concrete forms … in 1903-04. By the time the Grand Trunk was constructed, they had perfected their jackscrew lifting device, increased the amount of steel reinforcing and developed mechanical means for delivering the wet concrete to the construction site.”

Additionally: “The device allowed for speed in construction and resulted in smooth wall surfaces.”

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The Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office, Volume 128, characterized the jack screw apparatus in a nine-point description.

Before perfecting the jack screw method, Sinks had been a proponent of tile construction for elevators, according to his grandson John Sinks, a genealogical researcher. He says his grandfather joined James Stewart & Company in 1905. For 108 years, between 1845 and 1953 (the company had come from Canada to the U.S. after the Civil War), Stewart was “one of North America’s most accomplished and longest-standing contractors,” the site of the National Building Museum tells us.  

Meanwhile, Nelson Machine Company, of Waukegan, Ill., appears to have been a manufacturer not only of screw jacks but also of pressing machines and irons.

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An unlikely connection to Tillotson’s elevator in Elkhart, Kansas

by baggyparagraphs

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By Ronald Ahrens

“Oh, look at the funny building!”

So might a visitor from Southern California say after driving 1300 miles to Elkhart, Kan., in order to celebrate a niece’s graduation.

As it turns out, that visitor keeps bar at my club.

I heard her say she had been to Kansas.photo-1

“Where in Kansas? Atchison? Topeka?”

“Oh, nowhere. Elkhart.”

(They went across the Oklahoma border to have some fun. She won’t send the photo of herself dancing on the pool table.)

“Really? My grandfather built the Elkhart grain elevator, starting in 1945. I hope you took a picture.”

As it turns out, as you see, she took two.

Some day, I’ll explain everything she wants to know about reinforced concrete construction, surface bearing load, elevator motor speed, and storage annexes.

Meantime, we have all this.

Thank you, Shirin.

 

 

Charles H. Tillotson straddled the divide between wood and concrete

by baggyparagraphs

Charles H. Tillotson

By Ronald Ahrens

My Great-grandfather Charles H. Tillotson may have been following his trade by instinct, but he opened the way for descendants to distinguish themselves in the business of elevator construction.

I know the Tillotsons saw themselves primarily as carpenters. My Uncle Charles J. Tillotson went to work as an apprentice carpenter for Tillotson Construction, which was founded after the death of his grandfather Charles. My Uncle Michael Tillotson learned carpentry on through the family business and worked as a carpenter throughout his career. When I helped him finish concrete sidewalks on a couple of side jobs in the 1970s, he preached a gospel that carpenters could do it all, whether it be concrete or painting. And in elevator construction, it was true.

Charles H. Tillotson was born in Brunswick, Mo., in 1880. He married Rose Brennan in Riverside, Iowa.

He and my Great-grandmother Rose had an apparently cozy life in Omaha with their three grown children, Joseph, Reginald, and Mary, all of whom became involved in elevator construction. Kristen Cart’s research has found the Tillotsons listed in the 1930 census. They lived at 624 N. 41st.

A 1936 city directory listed Charles H. as president of Van Ness Construction, a company that built mills and elevators. Joseph served as secretary-treasurer and Reginald was a foreman. Mary worked as a clerk-typist at the Federal Land Bank.

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By then, Reginald was married to my grandmother, Margaret Irene McDunn Tillotson. Their firstborn Charles J., had arrived in 1935, followed the next year by my mother, Mary Catherine.

Uncle Tim Tillotson, the middle of their three sons between Charles J. and Michael (who was born in a home-built house trailer at a Smith Center, Kan., job site), says a story exchanged among the uncles was that Great-grandfather Charles H. would tell Reginald, “Put out that cigarette,” when they were working on jobs. The danger of fire was constant. How ironic, then, that Charles H. held a cigarette for his portrait.

After the death of paterfamilias Charles H., the Tillotson Construction Company was formed by Reginald, Joseph, and Mary. We would love to learn more about how this proceeded.

Meanwhile, the transition to slip-formed concrete construction was under way, with the Tillotsons’ carpentry skills being readily applied to the formwork.

A tale from the Johnson Construction elevator at Galatia, Kansas

by kocart
DSC_0582 copy Blencoe

Blencoe, Iowa

Story by Kristen Cart

Once again, one of our readers has supplied a fascinating glimpse into the construction of an elevator.

Emily Frank is the granddaughter of Darrell Greenlee, a foreman for Johnson and Johnson-Sampson. She related a story about the beginnings of the Galatia, Kan., grain elevator:

The Post Crescent 26 Mar 1959My grandfather built slipform concrete grain elevators while my mom was little. My grandparents moved around every three to six months from the time they were married until my mom (the third of six children) was in third grade. I find a lot of your stories remind me of the ones my mom told or my grandmother tells. You did one where a man fell to his death from an elevator during construction. Unfortunately that happened on a job where my grandfather was the foreman, as well…

My grandfather worked for Virgil Johnson. At the time the company was Johnson Elevator Company.

At a job in Galatia, Kan., in 1959, while Darrell was stabilizing the family trailer, it fell and he was hit across his back and shoulders. Rosina took him to the hospital. The hospital wasn’t going to see him until she could pay. She didn’t have insurance. She told them instead, “I’ve got enough money to buy this damn hospital.” When they left two days later, she paid cash.

Rosina called Virgil to tell him that Darrell had been hurt–not bad but he was pretty bruised up. Rosina wasn’t sure what they were going to do. She told Virgil she wanted to know what he was going to do because if Darrell didn’t work, he didn’t get paid. Virgil asked if his butt was bruised and then pointed to a chair and said “See that chair right there, he can park his ass right there and supervise from his chair.”

When the elevator was just about completed a man fell from the top of the elevator. Darrell was a witness to the fall. The guy opened the door at the top and the wind caught him and blew him over the side of the elevator. He fell 120 feet to his death. The man was Arthur Kronberg, 42, originally from Menasha, Wisconsin.

Rosina said when they called the man’s brother to tell him he could come pick up his belongings, he didn’t seem very interested, except he asked if there was anything of value. They had told him his brother had a truck. The man reluctantly agreed to get the truck.

Emily filled in some of the details of her grandfather’s career. The history of Johnson Elevator Company that she shared intrigued us, because the company took up where Mayer-Osborn Company left off and built strikingly similar elevators. The Galatia elevator is a close copy of the Mayer-Osborn elevators at McCook, Neb., and Blencoe, Iowa. Because of the similarities between them and a number of other Johnson elevators, we have speculated whether designer Gene Mayer continued his career with Virgil Johnson and brought his designs with him. Emily continued:

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Page City, Kan.

The elevator at Galatia is on one of Johnson’s business cards.

Johnson used to work with some brothers with the last name Sampson. They were Virgil Johnson’s brothers-in-law. They worked together for a while, too, under the name Johnson-Sampson.

My grandfather worked constructing concrete elevators from 1947 to about 1963. He worked for several different people.

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Mitchellville, Iowa.

Johnson was the man he worked for most, on and off over the years. When Virgil and his brothers-in-law split, my grandfather went to work for Dewey Construction and then Young Love. Then Virgil found a partner, and my grandfather worked for Johnson & Bratcher. Then Virgil went off on his own as Johnson Elevator Company.

When Virgil went broke after a missile base job in the 1960s, my grandfather worked for a guy by the name of Guy James. He did two jobs for him until he finally settled in Rushville, Ill. He never built another elevator, but he had his own company and they did a lot of elevator repair work.

My own grandfather William Osborn’s experience followed a similar trajectory–after he was done with elevator construction, he went on to elevator repair and maintenance. We always attributed the cancer that took him at age 75 to the dust he breathed during those years, though some of the damage could have been from smoking, a habit he dropped ten years before he died.

The hazards of the business were sometimes obvious, but often stealthy and unexpected. From dust, to wind, to new boots, to heedless roofers, many things in elevator construction took lives–but the monuments built by these mortal men remain, withstanding tornadoes, floods, hail, and every natural disaster.

 

Wrecking out details are provided in drawings from Tillotson records

by baggyparagraphs

Charles H. Tillotson

By Ronald Ahrens

The papers we received from my Uncle Tim Tillotson included not only the record of Tillotson Construction Company’s building activities, but also these pages showing details of building a wrecking-out platform as well as jack rod assemblies and formwork details. Page two is dated November 12, 1954.

A wrecking-out platform was needed as workers disassembled the formwork on the inside of the completed elevator.

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Uncle Charles Tillotson has previously written about his close call when cable clamps failed.

In that post he described a wrecking-out platform this way:

The final scaffold then becomes a square platform suspended in a round tank.

The void on each side of the scaffold is used for lowering or throwing the wood material into the tank’s dark abyss. After all the overhead wrecking has been accomplished, another team gains access to the tank’s bottom via a manhole in the side of the tank at or near ground level.

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The drawings and details presented in the notes included here are invaluable. For example: The hole in the roof is formed with a one-quart motor oil can. (“Remove can & plug hole,” the addendum reminds.)

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The handwritten note in the upper right corner of the first page says, “I put my center needle beam under the manhole then it is easy to get plank on and easy to get on scaffold. If you think this helps O.K. other wise [illegible] to a goose going south.”

“I’ll pick it up when I catch him down about Galveston,” this section concludes.

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Another note is on the quality of timbers: “I’ve been using these for 20 years if you use 3 good 2 x 6 they work fine and save over the 3 x 6 & all that steel and all you have to do is cut the ones you use in the tanks and they will work in small bins.”

We look forward to readers’ comments on the pages.

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A gleaming elevator and annex with distinctive headhouses in Glidden, Iowa

by baggyparagraphs
Glidden, Iowa

Tillotson’s 122-foot-tall elevator, center, was built at Glidden, Iowa, in 1949. The company added the 112-foot, 331,000-bushel storage annex in 1954. Photo: Tillotson Construction Company archive.

By Ronald Ahrens

On April 11, 1949, the Daily Times Herald, of Carroll, Iowa, reported a new elevator  under construction in Glidden for the Farmers Co-operative Company.

“About 20 feet higher than the present buildings, the new elevator will be situated east of them,” the newspaper reported. “With the additional storage space the company, for several years the largest co-operative elevator owned and operated in Iowa, will be able to take care of a large amount of corn and beans grown extensively in the Glidden area.”

The bins had quickly risen to 100 feet in height.

Tillotson Construction Company, of Omaha, was using a crew of about 35 men, who worked 10 hours per day, the report continued, perhaps leaving out at this late stage that a continuous pour would have require successive shifts in order to reach 100 feet.

Completion of the 100,000-bushel elevator was expected by July or August, the report said.

Through the company’s construction record, we now know more about the elevator. It is the twin of another elevator built that year in Churdan, about 22 miles away on county and main highways.

Those elevators had an exact capacity of 102,000 bushels. They used 1083 cubic yards of reinforced concrete and 57.72 tons of steel, including jack rods. The 24-inch-thick main slabs were 48×48 feet in area. The overall weight of the reinforced concrete, rated at 4000 pounds per cubic yard plus the steel, was 2224 tons.

Each elevator could hold 3060 tons of grain, averaging 60 pounds per bushel. Including all machinery and the hoppers, the gross loaded weight was 5709 tons, for a bearing pressure of 2.52 tons per square foot.

The curved cupola, or headhouse, which was the important signature of a Tillotson elevator, stood 17 feet wide, 34 feet long, and 22 feet high.

These were single-leg elevators, each with a full basement and an electrical room. Pulley centers were at 125.67 feet.

Each boot pulley was 60 x 14 x 2 3/16 inches while each head pulley differed only by having an axle shaft 1 3/4 inches greater in diameter.

The six-ply Calumet belt supplied for each leg was, of course, 14 inches wide. Cups of 12 x 6 inches were to be set nine inches apart, although a note under “Remarks” somewhat ominously says, “Cups @ 12″ O.C. @ Glidden” and adds “Job Error.”

A 30-horsepower Howell electric motor drove the head pulley. The theoretical leg capacity according to manufacturer ratings was 6540 bushels per hour, but running at a conservative 80-percent of capacity meant a more realistic take-up of 5230 bushels per hour.

The remarks make one distinction between Churdan and Glidden, saying the former had a split bin for the drier while no bin was fitted at the latter.

The driveway was 13 feet wide. There were two dump grates of 9 x 5 1/2 feet and 9 x 15 feet.

Later entries show a 331,000-bushel storage with flat-bottom tanks was added at Glidden in 1954. The next year, Churdan was expanded with 198,960 bushels of new capacity. They used 2318 and 1351 cubic yards of reinforced concrete, respectively, and 116.5 and 79.5 tons of steel.

Other specs for Glidden’s storage:

Main slab: 33 1/2 to 49 x 127 feet for 5481 square feet in total

Weight of reinforced concrete: 4752.5 tons

Weight of grain: 9930 tons

Gross weight loaded: 15,007.5 tons

Bearing pressure: 2.97 tons per square foot

Main slab thickness: 24 inches

Height of drawform walls: 104 feet

Cupola (headhouse) dimensions (W x L x H): 14 x 98 1/4 x 8 1/3 feet

Top and bottom belts: 24 inches @ 600 feet per minute

Cross belts: 24 inches @ 600 feet per minute