Category Archives: Their Work

Tillotson’s Vinton Street shows just how neighborly an elevator can be

by baggyparagraphs

Story and Photo by Ronald Ahrens

So many elevators are in small towns that visiting one in a big city is a bracing experience.

Tillotson’s Vinton Street elevator is at the bottom of a hill right in the midst of an Omaha residential neighborhood. The concrete silos stretch two whole blocks from Vinton on the north to Valley Street on the south.

The southernmost of the annexes leans hard against Interstate 80’s westbound lane.

To the east are bungalows and yards and gardens on the downslope from 32nd Street to 34th Street.

And the resident of any of the houses to the west, going uphill from 35th Street, get a whole faceful of imposing grain elevator.

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Viewing Tillotson’s Vinton Street elevator from the ground up in Omaha

by baggyparagraphs

Story and photos by Ronald Ahrens

One word stays in mind after my May 10 visit to Tillotson Construction Company’s Vinton Street elevator in Omaha: mighty. This elevator exudes mightiness.

The headhouse soars to an exaggerated height, towering above the residential neighborhood and looking down upon Interstate 80, which is just 100 yards to the south. 

The delicately rounded corners present a contrast to the otherwise stalwartly rectilinear character of the tower. From the look of it, I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn there were offices up there: people tapping away at keyboards, making trades, issuing policies.

It looks modern and well-designed and I can imagine how proud the Tillotsons were when they completed it.

I don’t know what year this was built. During my first twenty-one years, which were spent in Omaha, I passed this elevator umpteen times without having any idea that my grandfather’s company had built it.

Now knowing what I do, finding the manhole covers with the company’s name was a thrill.

Not knowing many other things, it would be interesting to learn the answer to questions about the elevator’s various fixtures and appurtenances. What is that big jobbie-do at the very top and when was it set there? Why are the windows located where they are?

Of course the Vinton Street elevator has received national attention because the annexes have become the canvas for a public art project; the nonprofit organization Emerging Terrain has commissioned artists to create themed banners that have been draped over the silos, and in fact a crew was just finishing up the last hanging when I arrived.

It’s a pity to see the elevator in disrepair, and I found myself wishing it would receive some attention, too.

Oh, what a fresh coat of paint and new panes of glass would do for the appearance!

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We visit the former Omaha office of Tillotson Construction Company

by baggyparagraphs

By Ronald Ahrens

On May 10, I was in Omaha with my camera. One objective was to visit the former office of Tillotson Construction Company. Uncle Tim Tillotson had recently tipped me off to this, saying he helped move out the company’s papers after Reginald’s death.

“Twelfth and Jones–the Office, the OFFICE!” he said.

I parked at 13th and Jones in the southern part of the Old Market area and walked across the intersection. In just a few more steps to the east I knew exactly what he was talking about.

It turns out, the Office was part of an Anheuser-Busch plant of four buildings erected in 1887. Besides the Office, designed in Romanesque style, there was a bottling facility, a beer storage warehouse, and a stable. The other three buildings were torn down, but the Office survives.

One hundred and one years after the Office went up, a finial above the doorway blew down during a windstorm. It was stolen and has never been recovered.

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Tillotson Construction adds six feet a day on Elkhart elevator

by baggyparagraphs
Elkhart–Construction is starting on the new 225,000 bushel elevator for the Equity Grain Co. here.
The Tillotson Construction Co. of Omaha has the contract.Hutchinson (Kan.) News-Herald, December 24, 1945

From the city of Elkhart’s website. Note elevator silos in upper left.

Work Day and Night on Elkhart Elevator 

Elkhart–Work is proceeding day and night on the construction of the new Equity elevator here.
Floodlights are rigged up to illuminate the scene for the night workers.The concrete storage tanks are going up at the rate of six feet a day. They will stand 140 feet high when completed. The elevator will have a storage of 250,000 bushels of grain.The Tillotson Construction Co. of Omaha, have the contract. It is expected the bins will be finished in three weeks.

Hutchinson (Kan.) News-Herald, March 21, 1946

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Elkhart farmers ‘raise sights,’ hire Tillotson Construction on new elevator

by baggyparagraphs

Photo taken March 19, 2011, by Kate Flint.

Stockholders of the Cooperative Equity Exchange here have raised their sights. Instead of the 100,000 bushel elevator first planned, the stockholders have voted in favor of erecting a modern elevator of 225,000 bushels capacity.

The contract has been let to the Tillotson Construction Co. of Omaha. It will be built on a “cost plus” basis, but Gale Cochran, manager of the Equity said it was estimated it would cost around $85,000.

There will be eight overhead bins, six interstice bins and eight grain tanks. The elevator head will stand 120 feet high. The plant will be built at the site of the old Elkhart mill, purchased from J.E. Heintz. The present elevator buildings will be sold.

Construction will be started in about two weeks, and the new plant is to be completed before harvest next summer.

Hutchinson (Kan.) News-Herald, November 20, 1945

♦ ♦ ♦

Note: Here’s the link to the BNSF railroad’s grain elevator index page on Elkhart.

Additional note: University of Southern California professor Kate Flint chased grain elevators in March 2011 and even stayed in one overnight.

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Marvin Richards falls 105 feet from Hinton elevator

by baggyparagraphs

Iowan Killed in Fall from Grain Elevator

Sioux City (AP) — Marvin Richards, 28, of Hinton died in a hospital here Friday shortly after he had fallen 105 feet from the top of a grain elevator at Hinton.

Richards was employed by the Tillotson Construction Company of Omaha. He was working on a scaffold atop the nearly completed elevator of the Farmers Elevator Company.

He apparently lost his balance and fell 105 feet to the concrete top of a hopper.

Cedar Rapids Gazette, October 1, 1954

♦ ♦ ♦

Special note: The obituary of Mr. Richards’s sister Deloris E. Holtz.

News of recent developments in Hinton are found on Younglove’s site, including a picture of the original elevator.

‘Stored Potential’ will expand art themes at Tillotson’s Vinton Street elevator

by baggyparagraphs

Illustration from Emerging Terrain, a Nonprofit Research & Design Collaborative

The Vinton Street elevator represents a bellwether for Tillotson Construction Co. Not only was it high and mighty but also close at hand for the company with headquarters in Omaha. Family and friends who never went to the small grain-belt towns where Tillotson put up elevators could see this one for themselves. In fact, they couldn’t miss it. And this was particularly true after Interstate 80 was completed: the superhighway went right past the complex that had risen and then expanded and finally fallen into abandonment.When I worked for a time at Omaha’s very first Federal Express office, a part-time job during my freshman year of college, I reguarly drove past the complex while on my way to the airport, having no idea my grandfather’s company had built the key elevator. And in the many times I’ve gone by since then on my return visits to Omaha, I still had no idea.The other day, speaking with my Uncle Tim Tillotson, he mentioned Vinton Street and said that Uncle Charles, the oldest son of Reginald and Margaret Tillotson, worked the night shift during the construction phase.

He also told me about the public art project.

Photo from Emerging Terrain

The abandoned elevator and silos are “bombproof,” as he put it, not readily lending themselves to any scheme for demolition. Even though my own grandfather and uncle had a hand in putting up this structure, I will admit it became rather tedious.

But I object to the invective of the blogger who used the term “visual pollution” and casually denigrated the elevators. Tillotson Construction took pains to erect symmetrical buildings with graceful cupolas.

In language more suitable for a grant proposal than a black eye, Anne Trumble, a thoughtful woman, describes the Vinton Street elevators as a blank canvas for “a large-scale installation re-purposing a prominent grain elevator no longer used for its original purpose.”

In September of 2010, her nonprofit, Emerging Terrain, weighed in with “Stored Potential: Re-Purposing the Mid-Century Grain Elevator” exercise, which allowed artists to work on a large canvas, draping thirteen banners, each of twenty-by-eighty-feet, on the silos.

The theme was land use, and the result was stunning.

Good news: next month, thirteen new banners will be added, this time addressing transport–the physical kind, not the ecstasy some will experience when seeing the finished result. 


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Omaha World-Herald went high above the Vinton Street elevator in ’47

by baggyparagraphs

Omaha World-Herald photo in 1947 by John S. Savage, from http://www.historicomaha.org

From www.historicomaha.org

During the summer of 1947, the Omaha World-Herald published a series of 45 aerial photographs depicting the city of Omaha. The pictures were later published in a book entitled “Omaha From the Air.” The photographs were taken by World-Herald staff photographer John S. Savage. The plane was piloted by Marion Nelson of the Omaha Aircraft Company.

Omaha is known around the world for many things. Not the least is its giant grain and milling industry.

This view from the Magic Carpet shows just a segment of the industry which employs thousands here, puts bread and cereals on tables over the world.

From the Magic Carpet you are looking south. The large structure in the foreground is the 1,750,000-bushel elevator of the Westcentral Co-operative Grain Company. Seemingly rising out of the elevator at the rear are the buildings of the Maney Milling Company. South of the elevator is the plant of the Famous Molasses Feed Company.

At far left in the background is the Omar, Inc., mill. Nearby, but not shown, is the Allied Mill. The Butler-Welsh Grain Company elevator is behind the span shown in the background. Also not shown is the Kellogg plant. It is off to the right in the foreground.

The span in the foreground is the Bancroft Street viaduct. Behind it is the Vinton Street viaduct. Far in the background is the Dahlman Crossing. The street at far right is Twenty-seventh.

The two sets of tracks shown at left in the foreground are those of the Burlington. The center string belongs to the Union Pacific and the area is known as its Summit yards. At right are yards of the Chicago and Great Western Railroad.

Through the yards shown here come much of the grain that makes Omaha the nation’s fifth largest grain and milling center.

Carload grain shipments so far this year total 46,508.

Most of the grain pours into Omaha through the Omaha Grain Exchange, organized in 1904. Actually, only little pans of samples appear on the floor of the Exchange. The rest stays in box cars until it is bought, or is stored in elevators.

The market’s 18 elevators have a capacity of 28,185,000 bushels. They include one of the largest in the world, the 10 million bushel elevator of Cargill, Inc.

The railroads serve the grain market.

A good share of Omaha grain receipts is turned into food products here. There are three flour mills, with a daily milling capacity of 10,800,000 pounds. Allied Mills, Inc., has a capacity of 1,200 tons daily in its feed and alfalfa meal plant. The Kellogg Company‘s daily corn products capacity is 7,200 bushels.

A major Omaha grain consumer is the Farm Crops Processing Corporation’s alcohol plant. It can gulp up 40 thousand bushels a day.

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One more view, approaching driveway, of Tillotson’s Dallas Center elevator

by baggyparagraphs

 

Photo by Kristen Osborn Cart

Approaching Tillotson Construction’s Dallas Center, Iowa, elevator from a different angle yields a view of the driveway used by co-op members when unloading grain.

This original elevator built in 1955 boasted capacity of 250,000 bushels and rose 166 feet in height.

Dallas Center Farmers Cooperative had contracted Tillotson to do the job for $151,000.

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Handsome headhouse adds distinction to Tillotson’s Dallas Center elevator

by baggyparagraphs

Story by Ronald Ahrens

Photo by Kristen Osborn Cart

In a phone conversation today with my Uncle Tim Tillotson, who lives in Virginia, he initially had no recollection of Tillotson Construction Company’s elevator in Dallas Center, Iowa.

He put this down to his hitch in the Army from 1955 to 1957.

After a while, though, the name Dallas Center started to come back to him a little. Uncle Tim reckoned it was indeed among the dozens and dozens of Tillotson Elevators.

This was the first he had heard about Our Grandfathers’ Grain Elevators. (We played phone tag in January and now finally got in touch.) He said he would look at it at one of his neighbors’. He doesn’t have a computer.

We’re hoping he can come up with some pictures and maybe a few documents, and that his memory is sparked.

One question to me was whether we’re aware of the distinctive architectural styles of individual construction companies. I could answer that indeed we are, thanks in large part to Gary Rich’s expositions through words and pictures.

A Tillotson characteristic is the rounded headhouse, also called a cupola, which Kristen has so graphically captured in this image.

It’s good to see the window panes have been replaced as they’ve broken: I presume that explains the checkerboard pattern.

But then after all, in Dallas Center, as Kristen points out, the Tillotson elevator is at the center of the community, so naturally it’s kept up.

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