Story by Ronald Ahrens with photography by Mark Vaughn

Crossing from Utah into Colorado on U.S. 491 leaves a traveler with very little to look at. The landscape is wide open and featureless, giving extra significance to architectural wonders that may be encountered. As he left the Beehive State on this route and approached Dove Creek, Colo., our friend Mark Vaughn found his drifting thoughts interrupted by the stirring sight of a concrete elevator.

Vaughn’s thoughts then turned to his favorite blog, Despite being overcome by mad inspiration, he kept his car on the road while taking a picture through the windshield.

As West Coast editor for Autoweek, keeping cars on the road has been a Vaughn specialty for thirty-seven years. His interest in elevators is a more recent development and redounds to our benefit.

With contoured sides, an overhanging brow, and twin rectangular windows as “eyes,” the bare concrete structure at Dove Creek looks like a tall, broad-shouldered robot. Studying the results of Vaughn’s scouting leaves us marveling at the concave cupola, which is of a rare design.

Who built this elevator? And when? The answer could well be on the cast-iron plate covering the manhole. This plate is seen near the bottom of the left-side tank. We wouldn’t be surprised if embossed lettering names Mayer-Osborn Construction Co., of Denver, as the builder. Mayer-Osborn had incorporated curvature up top into its design vocabulary during the company’s early 1950s heyday.

Alas, Vaughn’s high rate of speed precluded his stopping in order to climb up and read the plate.

Our call to High Country Elevators, Inc., of Dove Creek, has not been returned. Nor has anything turned up in our search of newspaper archives.

Dryland bean production is big in southwestern Colorado, and elevator capacity at Dove Creek is devoted to pinto beans. If indeed this was a Mayer-Osborn job, we can’t say our grandfathers always built grain elevators. Sometimes they built bean elevators.

The Dove Creek Press probably holds answers to our questions, but that newspaper is archived on microfilm at the Colorado Historical Society. Because Vaughn didn’t stop there either, we won’t know anytime soon.