Category Archives: Their Work

A look at the inside of a concrete elevator in Wichita, Kansas

by kocart

Story by Kristen Cart

The run, at the top of the annex, has a conveyor to deliver grain to the bins. A tripper pushes the grain off the conveyor into the correct bin. Photo by Christopher

Benton, Kansas, was an interesting place to visit if you wanted to learn about elevators. Christopher, a worker for Mid Kansas Co-op at the Benton elevator, had previously worked at their Wichita, Kansas, concrete elevator. He took a few minutes to explain the differences between elevator types when I stopped in to visit during harvest. He also sent me some photos of the Mid Kansas Co-op’s concrete elevator in Wichita taken from the top and from the inside. I had a rough idea how elevators worked, but I had never seen these parts for myself.

The man lift, seen from above, has a platform to stand on and a hand-hold above it. It is essentially a conveyor belt. Photo by Christopher.

The elevator was conspicuously clean. Dust could not be tolerated because of the explosive hazard, and cleaning took place before and during each harvest. This elevator was taking corn from the smaller Benton elevator on the day I stopped in Benton.

The photos show a few of the numerous large elevators in an area north of the city, which leads me to believe that Wichita is a major hub for grain storage and shipment in the Midwest. Except for a few very old elevators in the area they all appear to be in use.

I appreciate seeing some of the inner workings of an elevator. If you get the chance to work at an elevator and get out on top, the view is breathtaking.

A view of one of the huge Wichita elevators from the top of the MKC elevator, giving a true sense of its height. Photo by Christopher

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Benton, Kansas, offers some direct lessons in elevator operations

by kocart

The Benton, Kan., elevator complex.

Story and photos by Kristen Cart

Sometimes while checking out leads about elevators my grandfather was involved with, I’ve made some fascinating side trips. I stopped at a Chalmers and Borton-built elevator in Walton, Kansas, and met the grain manager there, Jeff Snyder. He tipped me off about an operating wooden elevator at Benton, Kansas, also owned and operated by Mid Kansas Co-op, which would make a rare photo opportunity. I made a point to drive up there the next time I had a layover in Wichita.

Loading corn for transfer to a larger elevator.

My earlier visit to Traer, Kansas, left me with questions about why cooperatives have come to rely so heavily on metal bins, and why relatively few new concrete elevators are built. The speed of loading and unloading is one limiting factor for elevators. But on my visit to Benton, I was able to gain some insight into other design considerations.

Benton, Kansas, still uses a wooden elevator with metal siding for part of their storage. Beside it, several metal bins make up the rest of their capacity.  Harvest was going strong when I stopped by. I saw trucks pull up every few minutes to load corn from a large metal hopper near the grain bins, looping through the scales both before and after filling their trailers. A worker conducting the loading operation noticed me by the railroad tracks with my camera, and during a lull he laconically introduced himself, saying, “Just Christopher will do.” He had a temporary job working for Mid Kansas Co-op during harvest both in Benton and in Wichita at their large concrete elevator, where he became well-versed in elevator operations.

Spencer Reams, site manager for Mid Kansas Co-op at Benton, Kan.

Spencer Reams, the site manager, greeted me inside the scale house. According to Mr. Reams, Benton, Kansas, had a unique problem for a region in the grips of a severe drought. Because of very localized rain at just the right times, the area immediately around Benton had experienced a record harvest, up to five percent over any previous harvest.  So the elevator was completely full of corn while the milo and bean harvest was underway. Grain trucks were called in to move the corn to the cooperative’s larger Wichita elevator to make room, as Christopher explained. While I watched, an old farm truck full of milo pulled in to unload into the pit. Meanwhile the grain trucks, once they were loaded with corn and weighed, made the nine-mile trip into Wichita and then returned for more, waiting for the loading hopper to fill before filling up.

A truck dumps milo into the pit where a conveyor would take it to the leg, out of the photo behind a bin on the right. The loading hopper is to the left.

Christopher told me what he thought of the various types of elevators. He said that he preferred the metal bins–they were easier to work around. He showed me a photo of the man-lift that was used in the Wichita concrete elevator, and I agreed that it looked like a harrowing ride. A simple ladder on the side of a metal bin seemed safer. Also, older concrete elevators were crumbling, he said. For one thing, during freezing temperatures, trapped moisture could cause the concrete to crack and flake. It could be patched, but much like a road bed, eventually the elevator would become unserviceable and unsafe.  Though he did not comment on Benton’s wooden elevator, it was apparent that for various reasons these wooden structures were becoming harder to keep within regulatory bounds. It is very remarkable, in fact, to see one still in operation.

Each storage facility apparently has its advantages and drawbacks. One of the chief advantages of an elevator is its existence–if it is standing and in any way serviceable, it will be used. Its life ends when it can no longer keep up with demand, and when it becomes cheaper to build a new one than to repair or upgrade an old one. So each year more of the old landmarks go missing, to be replaced by the plain and common metal bin.

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Tillotson Construction’s Giddings, Texas, elevator rose by 10 feet per day but then disappeared entirely

by baggyparagraphs

By Ronald Ahrens

The Fairmont Foods Co. elevator that Tillotson Construction Co. built in Giddings, Tex., around 1945 became the hub of a busy and diverse agricultural service, one that had started a decade earlier.

As part of its Giddings operation, Fairmont, of Omaha, Neb.–just like Tillotson Construction–ran the largest turkey dressing plant in the Southwest. Every year, over 200 carloads shipped from here for the Thanksgiving and Christmas markets. During other parts of the year, the dressing plant stayed busy with chickens destined for such grocery chains as Weingarten’s, which in 1951 had twenty-five stores in Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

Besides the poultry dressing, Fairmont processed eggs here and had a locker plant described as “huge” in the June 13, 1974 centennial edition of the Giddings Times & News. A hatchery and feed-mixing plant completed the operation.

On July 14, 1955, the Times & News carried the following item:

Fairmont Foods Co. has announced the sale of its feed mixing plant in Giddings to the Nutrena Mills, Inc., of Wichita Falls and Minneapolis, Minn.

Change of ownership will take place officially about July 15. Nutrena is one of the nation’s oldest and largest feed manufacturers. Nutrena feeds are distributed in a 24-state area from the Rocky Mountains to the Southeastern coast and from Canada to Mexico.

Fairmont Foods recently observed the 20th anniversary of their opening in Giddings. Fairmont officials emphasize that they will continue to serve their customers with the poultry processing plant.

The former site of the Fairmont Building has been paved over. Photo by Ray Kirchmeyer.

In 1966, Nutrena remodeled the offices. But few traces of the operation remain today. Tillotson’s Fairmont Building was demolished, and a bare parking lot is found at the site.

Special thanks to Ray Kirchmeyer for providing the photo and historical documents. 

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In 1945, William Osborn worked on Tillotson Construction’s elevator in Giddings, Texas

A Galveston seaside respite for the Osborns and Salroths in 1945

In Monument, Kansas, the elevator is closed to visitors and its story sealed

by kocart

Story and photos by Kristen Cart

I approach this post with a little bit of trepidation, since the Monument, Kan., elevator does not invite tourists–even those with family connections. It is operated by a large corporation which primarily supplies corn for ethanol. It seems that an overly inviting manager might be risking his job, so I contented myself with photos taken from off of the property. But I was able to cobble together some information about it, from a variety of sources. Suffice it to say, it would not be prudent to reveal all of them.

A view of the Monument, Kan., elevator, taken from off-property. Visitors weren’t permitted at the facility.

I was able to determine the builder for the stand-up elevator with its integral head house. The manhole covers are stamped with the company name of J. H. Tillotson, Denver, Colo. The annex on the left has unmarked ports, but the annex on the right has man-hole covers stamped with the company name Mayer-Osborn. I did not see any of the ports for myself, so I am relying on secondhand information. But my grandfather apparently made a return trip after building the original house.

The original elevator was built for a Mr. Bertrand, whose son is still living. The elevator once had a brass plaque installed, which has since been removed and may still be with the Bertrand family. There were also early photographs of the elevator, and it is believed that they went with the plaque.

I spoke with a gentleman named Fred Wassemiller, who said, “These elevators were the best thing going–they should have kept building them.” He also said it was too bad that the “old-timers around here are gone.”

Apparently, they could have told me a lot.

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Gary Rich’s analysis reveals subtle aspects of Mitchellville, Iowa, elevator operation

by baggyparagraphs

Story by Gary Rich
Photos by Kristen Cart

There are several possibilities as to why Heartland Co-op’s Mitchellville, Iowa, elevator would only use rail service for shipping out its grain. The most obvious one is that this might be a shuttle operation. Whether corn or soybeans, the company that receives the grain might have a contract with the elevator specifying shipment of a certain number of carloads per week. It is probably a larger-name company, and they could be paying for the shipping charges. This would keep their operation from having to shut down for lack of grain.

The photos appear to show nine or ten covered hopper cars at the elevator’s far right. In the view at top, we see yellow markings on the rail on the elevator track. This is known as the “clearance point.” You can’t have cars sitting beyond these markings without “fouling” the main line. The following links to lexicons of railroad terminology will explain both terms:

http://www.icrr.net/terms.htm
http://cfr.vlex.com/vid/214-7-definitions-19944901

Here’s an illustration why it’s cheaper to move grain by rail. The amount of grain in one covered hopper car leaving the elevator equals three semi-trailer loads. If you load ten hopper cars, you’re probably looking at an equivalent of around thirty-three or thirty-four semi-trailers. If the plant that receives the grain is over 200 miles from Mitchellville, it would take more than a week to move all that grain over the highway.

Indeed, if the plant is 200 miles away, you also have to consider the amount of time a trucker can work. He wouldn’t be able to cover two round-trips per day. And besides, the trucker’s charge of something over $4.00 per mile might erode all profit for the grain operation.

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Tillotson Construction’s Mitchellville elevator is a key part of Heartland’s grain operation

by kocart

The Heartland Cooperative elevator complex at Mitchellville, Iowa.

Story and photos by Kristen Cart

The Mitchellville elevator is visible from Interstate 80, and the rounded head house drew my attention as we headed through Iowa on our way home from our recent trip out West. “Just one more stop, OK, kids?” I said, and they answered with groans. I think I promised ice cream to quell the protest.

The main elevator built by Tillotson Contruction Company of Omaha, with grain drier.

I parked the van, air conditioner running, in a shady spot and hopped out with my camera. Thunderheads threatened nearby, but the storm seemed to be moving off, and the sun peeked out and illuminated the scene. I took advantage of the beautiful light to photograph the elevator.  As I finished up, I saw a truck rounding the corner from an alley into the gravel lot beside the elevator, so I flagged the driver down to ask if he knew anything about it. We were in luck.

The driver introduced himself as Ed Baldwin, a grain truck driver for Webb Farms. He was more than happy to talk about the elevator, having trucked “at least two million bushels” in and out of Michellville. Bill and Stan Webb own the farm, and Ed purchased his truck from their father who used to truck his own grain. Ed gave me a quick outside tour of the elevator property.

The Younglove annex viewed from the driveway.

Ed explained the Heartland Cooperative operation at Mitchellville. He did not know the builder of the “head house,” as he termed the main elevator, but he knew the adjacent annex was built by Younglove in 1972.  The bins had numbers and he pointed out the function of each one. All the way to the left was a new bin with its own leg that was built in the 1980s and used for damaged corn. Immediately to the right of it, on one end of the Younglove annex, was a bin dedicated to soybeans. The rest of the annex held corn, with the main house taking all the wet corn since it gave access to the grain drier.

The Younglove annex is placarded with the date of construction.

During harvest, the employees kept a grueling schedule filling the bins, especially during a wet year. Jim Dietrich, grain manager for Heartland Co-op at Mitchellville, would pull a twenty-four hour shift to accept the grain into the main elevator and dry it. The drier had a capacity of seven thousand bushels per hour, which would limit the amount of grain that could be taken in. Ed said the main house would take seven semi loads per hour of grain that needed to be dried. Shipments from the elevator were by rail, unless capacity was reached and grain needed to be trucked.  Trucking would be the exception for Mitchellville’s operation.

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McCook’s J. H. Tillotson-built elevator is still all original, down to the light fixtures

by kocart

J. H. Tillotson built this attractive elevator at McCook, Neb. in 1948.

Story and photos by Kristen Cart

Kelly Clapp explains how levers and pulleys are used to distribute grain.

The straight-up elevator at McCook, Nebraska, was built for a private owner in 1948. J. H. Tillotson, Contractor, of Denver, Colorado, was tapped for the project, and it was completed just a year before the Mayer-Osborn Construction Company of Denver built the nearby Frenchman Valley Cooperative elevator. My grandfather, William Osborn, was a superintendent for Joe Tillotson at the time, just before going on to form the Mayer-Osborn Company with Gene Mayer, so both projects were his.

Kelly Clapp, a Frenchman Valley Co-op employee, opened up the elevator so I could look inside. A trapped pigeon stood  in the doorway when it opened, blinking in the unaccustomed light. It fluttered off when we went in. What I saw was state of the art for 1948.

The elevator leg, which lifts grain from the pit to the top of the bins.

The elevator stands by itself and is unique since no renovation has ever been done to it. The elevator is original, right down to the light bulbs, Kelly said. It operates as it always has. It only takes corn when the other McCook elevators are full. The elevator is cleaned right before harvest, so the manhole covers, stamped “J. H. Tillotson, Denver,” were off and the bins were open.

The elevator has basic electrical functions such as lighting, and the conveyors and the leg are motor-operated, but all of the controls for it are manual. Levers and pulleys operate in the driveway to direct grain chutes to load corn into a waiting truck, and a similar arrangement at the top of the man-lift directs grain into the proper bin while loading the elevator.

The interior of the driveway, with the leg to the right.

This elevator is a completely intact example of our agricultural past–as fascinating as a water-driven grist mill from the century before. Structures of concrete and steel, built for industrial purposes, don’t merit a historical marker or national designation, but they are just as significant as an ancient town hall or a dignified farm house. I think I prefer the plain functionality of the grain elevator.

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The J. H. Tillotson-built farm elevator at Traer, Kan., is still standing, but idle

by kocart

Grafel Farm elevator, built by J.H.Tillotson, Contractor, at Traer, Kan.

Story and photos by Kristen Cart

The road to Traer, Kan., was a bit obscure. The town is south of McCook, Neb., across the border, on unpaved secondary roads. It took some navigating to get close to the elevator, and then to find the right road, once the elevator peeked over the farm fields. We were rewarded with a handsome, squared-up, tall elevator on a lonely rail line in a winding creek valley surrounded by farmland. I hopped out of the van in a grassy parking area and started to take pictures. A truck was parked at the weighing house by the elevator. I knew this was a private farm, and it always had a privately owned elevator, from the time my grandfather built it. So I wanted to make my presence known.

The elevator leg and bins.

When we visited McCook’s elevator earlier in the day, worker Kelly Clapp told me the Traer elevator was still in operation. But his information was about two years out of date. Don Grafel, who greeted me when I entered the elevator office, chuckled when I asked if the elevator was working. “I wish a tornado would take it down,” he said.

Don had started working at the Traer elevator as a kid. His family now leases the farmland from a granddaughter of the Anderson family, who had the elevator built, and as part of the deal, the Grafel family had to buy the elevator. The Grafels operated it for a number of years.

The elevator was retired two seasons ago, Don said. The problem with the elevator was twofold. It had been built in a flood area with a high water table, and the measures taken during construction to account for the water had started to fail. It had leaking problems during wet years. But worse, the elevator was slow. Don said the elevator could take a semi-load at a time in the pit, which was good, but it would take an hour to load the bins. Fifteen years ago, the Grafel farm placed metal bins on high ground above the town. That handled the water risk, but Don said that even those bins were falling behind demand because of slow loading.

“J. H. Tillotson, Contractor, Denver” is stamped on the interior manhole covers.

Shirley Nichols, who also worked at the office, was keenly interested in the history of the elevator. I had a treat to offer her. Russell Anderson, who commissioned the elevator, wrote a letter of recommendation for my grandfather’s new company on May 6, 1949. The Traer elevator was an example of Grandpa’s work before he went out on his own after working for J.H. Tillotson, Contractor. I gave a copy of the letter to her along with a photo my grandfather took during the elevator construction. In return, she gave me another construction photo and some historical pictures of the town.

Finally, my hungry and thirsty children came into the office, and the visit was pretty well over. Don’s brother Greg came in after meeting my husband in the parking lot. He wondered who had dropped by. But it was time to get on the road again, before the complaints got too shrill.

The good people of the Grafel farm made us feel very welcome, and gave us a window into the Traer elevator’s past. I’m glad we were able to see it while it still stands.

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Maywood, Nebraska: another Mayer-Osborn landmark meets its end

by kocart

Photo by Kristen Cart

By Kristen Cart

The old Maywood, Nebraska, elevator with its annex built by Mayer-Osborn Contruction Company of Denver, Colorado, was demolished in March of this year. I had planned the trip to see the elevator before its scheduled demolition in 2013. When we arrived in town, I expected to see the familiar straight-up J. H. Tillotson, Contractor-designed elevator with its annex beside it, but it was nowhere to be found. But I saw bulldozers and a football field-sized area framed with rubble piles, with corn impacted into the flat scraped ground. Not good.

Inside the Ag Valley Co-op office, business was in full swing. A truck pulled up, and a corn sample was vacuumed up and tested inside the building as I watched. Newer elevators were handling all of the grain. Turena Ehlers and Charla Werkmeister, employees of the co-op, told me how it went.

Photo by Julie Cox Hazen

The old Mayer-Osborn annex had a pretty good lean and some leaking problems, so it had been slated for destruction first, with the status of the main elevator left in question. But the main elevator was losing chunks of concrete and was deemed a hazard, so it came down soon after the annex. Forest River Colonies, of Fordville, North Dakota, a Hutterite-owned company, tore down the elevator and its annex, with the scrap going to Columbus Metals in Kearney, Nebraska. My hopes were dashed for recovering an intact manhole cover with my grandfather’s Mayer-Osborn company name on it.

Photo by Julie Cox Hazen

The demolition was quite an event for the town. Carol Wood put together a photo montage and hung it at the Maywood town offices. Bill Schnase picked up pieces of the rubble for his daughter to paint, to preserve the image of the elevator on concrete. Everyone had photos of the demolition. Julie Cox Hazen, Bill Schnase’s niece, shared hers with me.

Luckily, Gary Rich visited the elevator last year, taking photos of it in its last year of useful service. It’s type had been surpassed for a long time by newer, faster grain storage facilities of all kinds.

Most of Grandpa’s smaller projects are reaching the end of their service lives. So we are capturing their last moments, mostly, but not always, in the nick of time.

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Jerry McBride worked at Wauneta’s elevator in the ’60s before repairing cars

by kocart

Jerry McBride at Bob’s Repair Service in Wauneta, Nebraska

Story and photos by Kristen Cart

On the way out of town after visiting the Wauneta, Nebr., elevator complex, we noticed a rather striking old building, which was an auto repair garage, currently owned by Robert Jones, and called Bob’s Auto Repair and Service, at 512 S. Tecumseh.

I stopped to take pictures. A man came out, introducing himself as Jerry McBride, and asked if I liked old buildings. I said I did, and that I had a particular interest in old elevators, having visited Wauneta’s that day. He invited me in to see the shop. It had been built in the 1920s, Jerry said, and mostly knocked down by a tornado sometime before the 1950s, when it was rebuilt and an extension added.

All of this happened before Jerry was employed there.

Wauneta’s original elevator

He said that he had been hired by Ivo Valentine Pennington in about 1962. Before that he was employed as a “broom man” at the Wauneta elevator for six months or so, making fifty cents an hour. Cleanliness was of utmost importance at the elevator. Wauneta gained the reputation for having the cleanest elevator in the state, Jerry said. Unclean elevators would catch fire, or worse, blow up. He kept the elevator clean, as dust free as possible, but it was nevertheless hard and dirty work and did not pay well, so he quit and looked into the possibility of going to school. Then I.V. Pennington offered him a job and all the training he would need to become a mechanic.


The shop today is an old-fashioned one that doesn’t take new cars. Parts could be machined there, and many of the tools had been manufactured by hand, to accommodate old cars.

Even the cash register was old–as Jerry pointed out, he did not have to close for a power outage, because the register still worked.

It struck me that Jerry McBride had first worked in this shop when the Wauneta elevator was less than ten or fifteen years old and the first annex was new. The repair shop was already old by then. Except for some modern tooling, the shop does not appear to be very different than in the 1960s.

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