By Kristen Cart

We use the old construction ledgers kept by the Tillotson Construction Company of Omaha to locate the elevators they built, and when one turns up missing, we have to find out why. Such was the case in York, Nebr. In earlier posts we touched on York, but a deeper dive into newspaper accounts revealed the issues that led to the demise of the Tillotson elevator there.

The York elevator was announced with fanfare in 1951. It was to go up in time to receive the crop that year. On Apr. 11, the York News-Times published a representative image of a Tillotson elevator, and added that six such elevators already existed in rural Nebraska at the time.

The next clue to the fate of York’s grain storage was the collapse of the Farmers Co-Op Elevator in 1990. When I first found the newspaper account, I thought, “Ah-hah–that’s what happened!” Except it wasn’t the Tillotson elevator. This elevator experienced a second collapse a day later, destroying more tanks (silos) while workers attempted to unload the remaining grain. No one was hurt in the second collapse. Remarkably, the elevator was salvaged and continued to serve, eventually surviving the Tillotson elevator.

The fate of the Tillotson elevator was announced in the York News-Times of Aug. 8, 1991, where we found that the “white elevator” was slated for demolition because of severe structural problems. The article noted that the main elevator had been built 40 years earlier, which coincided with the build date of the Tillotson job. No rounded headhouse (a Tillotson signature) is evident in the photograph, but the article leaves no other interpretation, since the elevator that had collapsed a year previously was still in service. Evidently an annex had been added after the main Tillotson elevator was built in 1951.

The previously collapsed elevator was eventually torn down also.

So now I know why, as I travel down I-80 at 75 miles per hour, no white edifice looms in the distance as I approach York. As the people involved with the construction of these prairie monuments pass away, we are losing the best witnesses to their beginnings. Few people make much of a note of their endings. So more and more, we rely on newspapers.

We count ourselves lucky that so many of the participants have spoken about their experiences in posts here at Our Grandfathers’ Grain Elevators. Now we will continue our research as best we can, even in places like York where the elevators are long gone.