Page 5 of the Tillotson Construction Co. record documents the stretch in 1949 to 1950 when the company extended its accomplishments as a builder of reinforced-concrete grain-storage buildings, completing main-house elevators or annexes at sixteen locations.
The Omaha company led by Reginald O. Tillotson and Mary V. Tillotson produced 3,744,00 bushels of new capacity in this period. Jobs were in six states: Iowa (3), Nebraska (1), Kansas (1), Colorado (3), Oklahoma (5) and Texas (3).
Here’s the complete list of locations: Wapello, Alta, and Rock Valley, Iowa; Bellwood, Nebr.; Clifton, Kan.; Seibert, Burlington, and Flagler, Colo.; Bushland, Canyon, and Hartley, Tex.; and Helena, Imo, Drummond, Pond Creek, and Kildare, Okla.
Bushland, Tex. is pictured at the top of this post.
Tillotson was in its maximalist phase. The average among these sixteen jobs was 234,000 bushels. Not bad for a company that a decade earlier (with time off during World War Two) started with 60,000 bushels at Goltry, Okla.
The smallest commission was the 100,000-bushel storage annex at Helena, Okla,, where Tillotson had built the main house two years earlier. Its capacity, too, was 100,000 bushels.
Largest in this group were the 320,000-bushel elevators at Canyon, Tex. and Bellwood, Nebr. Both followed the same plan with eight tanks measuring 20 feet in diameter and reaching 120 feet in height. There were 22 internal bins and a dust bin.
A digital copy of Page 5A of the records, giving more complete specifications, isn’t available for this post.
I was born in Canyon, Tx in 1950. My parents would have seen the construction of the elevator. Dad was foreman on a farm/ranch there, and Mom would have driven into town to the grocery store.