After Ben E. Schmidt crewed on the 1948 Tillotson Construction Co. job in Montezuma, Kan., he helped to build a dozen more elevators in six other states.

He wasn’t the only member of the Schmidt family riding the formwork.

“I don’t know for sure how many of the brothers worked on elevators, but I know a brother-in-law, Jake Unruh, was also on this job,” says Mindi Adkins, granddaughter of Ben E. Schmidt.

Mindi–who contributed the home-movie captures with this post–absorbed the family lore of elevator construction days.

She thinks the job seen in this post is Tillotson’s 1950 elevator in Alta, Iowa. Capacity was 246,070 bushels. There were eight tanks measuring 18 feet in diameter and reaching 115 feet in height. More specific details are found on page 5 of the Tillotson construction record.

The image at the head of this post shows formwork as the crew is nearly ready to top-out the cupola.

The overalls-clad figure on the catwalk is Mindi’s grandfather Ben, doing the task of concrete-finishing.

The home-movie film was shot by Mindi’s great-uncle Fred Schmidt.

Fred’s color movie is a valuable survivor of the boom period of concrete-elevator construction. His foresight in making the movie benefits Our Grandfathers’ Grain Elevators today, thanks to Mindi’s initiative to isolate these images.