Tag Archives: agriculture

The Pocahontas, Iowa, elevator remains a lovely monument to Tillotson ingenuity

by kocart

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Story and photos by Kristen Cart

The Tillotson elevator at Pocahontas, Iowa, first came to our attention as the site of a tragic accident where a young construction worker lost his life. Larry Ryan fell to his death because he tripped while crossing from the elevator to the annex on a makeshift wooden walkway, according to fellow workers. He wore brand new work boots and some speculated that they contributed to the accident. The young hoist operator was twenty years old when he fell 130 feet to his death from the top of the nearly completed annex in 1954.

I finally had the opportunity to see the site for myself this past summer. We took a wide detour north of our regular route from Nebraska to Illinois–it added a good four hours driving time, not counting the stops. My young cheering section (the kids) were not cheering about the extra road time.

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Upon our arrival in Pocahontas, a town along Lizard Creek in north central Iowa miles away from any major state thoroughfares, we immediately noticed the Tillotson elevator and its trademark rounded headhouse. The annex stood beside the original elevator, rising higher (by 10 feet) than its 120 foot companion, and gleaming with clean whitewashed concrete. It showed no sign of its sorrowful beginnings.

Later additions, including an elevator with headhouse, a flat storage shed, old steel hoppers, and modern steel bins with external legs, surrounded the two concrete structures.

The Tillotson elevator and annex were flanked on one side by a quiet street with an old church and ancient maple trees. The bustle of grain trucks was absent on the Sunday afternoon of our visit, and the co-op office was closed. Only the elevator exhaust fans pierced the silence.

We circled the complex, taking a number of photographic views, before going on our way.

We have the specifications for both the 1949 elevator and its 1954 annex. The annex construction record is detailed here.

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The Pocahontas annex was built with six 18-foot diameter, 10-foot spread by 130-foot high bins; with a basement; the bins were flat bottomed, built with 30-inch belt conveyors and tripper.

Planned capacity (with pack) was 222,440 bushels; translating to 1,863 bushels of capacity per foot of height. The total reinforced concrete, per plans, was 1,366 cubic yards. Plain concrete for hoppers, per plans, was 9.5 cubic yards, and reinforcing steel used, including jack rods, was 69.59 tons.

The design specified the average quantity of reinforcing steel used for the whole annex, which was 101.89 pounds per cubic yard of concrete.  Actual planned amounts were then itemized for various components of the structure:

Main slab: 27,017 lbs. steel/219 c.y. concrete

Drawform walls: 30,708 lbs. steel/990 c.y. concrete

Overhead bin bottoms: 9,957 lbs. steel/70.5 c.y. concrete

Bin roof and extension roofs: 6,740 lbs. steel/44 c.y. concrete

Cupola walls: 3,747 lbs. steel/33 c.y. concrete

Cupola roof: included in walls

Bridge/Tunnel: 1,020 lbs. steel/9.5 c.y. concrete

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Dimensions and weight of the annex and its components were laid out also. The main slab was 52′ x 60′, for an actual outside area on the ground of 2,946 square feet.

The weight of reinforced concrete, calculated at 4,000 pounds per cubic yard of concrete plus steel, was 2,801 tons. The plain concrete was also calculated at 4,000 pounds per cubic yard and totaled 19 tons. The weight of the hopper fill sand was 177 tons.

When the weight of grain was added to the specifications, at 60 pounds per bushel (for Pocahontas, the grain load would total 6,660 tons), the planned gross weight of the annex could be predicted. Twelve tons of steel and machinery were added to the total, for a planned gross weight, loaded, of 9,669 tons.

From these figures, bearing pressure was calculated to be 3.28 tons per square foot.

To handle all of that pressure, the main slab was made 24 inches thick. It was built with #8 steel, placed at 6″ c.c. spacing. Tank steel and bottoms (for round tanks) used #4 steel at 9″ c.c. spacing.

The drawform walls, with extension, measured 411 linear feet, and 130 feet in height. Cupola dimensions were 16′ x 56′ x 8 1/3′.

Since this was an annex, distribution of grain was accomplished through the main elevator leg and thence by belt conveyors and a tripper. Many of the items expected for elevator specifications were absent for an annex. For machinery, the annex had top and bottom belts, rated at 600’/min or 3,000 bushels per hour. 7 1/2 horsepower drives were used for a total load rate of 9,000 bushels per hour.

Loading rates are key for grain storage operations, since they determine how quickly trucks or rail cars can unload and be on their way. Slow elevators become obsolete. The Pocahontas operation was at the leading edge of technology with its shiny new 1954 annex, and to this day it provides quick, efficient service.

 

 

Bruce Selyem, an old hand in elevator photography, is still in the game

by kocart
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Ione, Oregon

Story and photos by Kristen Cart

An eagerly awaited package arrived in the mail the other day. I opened it to find Bruce and Barbara Selyem’s 2016 elevator calendar–a vivid sampling of the photography work that Bruce has done over the years. Barbara Selyem called me to see if I would like one this year–I am an old customer, and I get one every year. So of course I asked her to send it.

Thirteen carefully selected images grace the calendar, and it does not disappoint.

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Indus, Alberta, Canada

Selyem Enterprises also produces framed elevator images for home and business, and if I bought everything I liked, I would run out of wall space very quickly. Bruce has documented many beautiful old wooden elevators in the United States and Canada that have gradually disappeared. Over the 20-plus years Bruce has been shooting elevators, most of the structures have only his photos to remember them by.

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Mossleigh, Alberta, Canada

If my kids had anyone to blame for the numerous side trips, excursions, and stops we have made to take pictures of wooden elevators in the wild, Bruce Selyem would top their list. I have studied his website carefully to plan for elevator photography trips in Idaho and Oregon. Many times the kids have admonished me for the odd elevator stop on the way to Nebraska. I can’t help it. They are beautiful.

Though not many of my wooden elevator photos have been published here, there is quite a collection of them. It is a passion, and I come by it honestly.

My grandfather, William Osborn, took many photos when I was a little girl. I remember the bellows on his camera, the camera body he carefully set up on a tripod, and his advice to sit still. He would pull the Polaroid photo out of the back of the camera while he started his buzzing timer. The hand on the timer would move interminably, and I would stand on tip-toe, eagerly awaiting the magic moment. Then he would peel the negative away and voila, a damp image would emerge, which I would hold gingerly by the edges while it dried.

As a girl, I wondered at the photo of his first elevator in McCook, Nebraska, that he built for Mayer-Osborn. I never knew I would combine his love for photography with his life’s work one day, and share all of it here.

To check out the photography of Bruce Selyem, visit his website at grain elevator photos. Bruce and Barbara Selyem welcome you.

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A concrete beauty. Nyssa, Oregon

Elevator investigations move farther afield with a side trip to Alta, Iowa

by kocart
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The trademark rounded headhouse identifies the Tillotson elevator, shown here behind the office and truck scale.

Story and photos by Kristen Cart

It is getting harder to visit our grandfathers’ elevators. All of the elevators within a half hour either side of the I-80 corridor have already been exhausted, so a stop for photography requires real planning and extra gas, time, and effort, even when piggybacked on our normal family visit to Nebraska.

The trip to Alta, Iowa, required just such an extra investment in driving time. The town and its Tillotson elevator is just north-west of Storm Lake in the northwestern corner of the state, and is not, quite frankly, on the way to anywhere.

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The Tillotson elevator in Alta, Iowa, where the old structure is mostly obscured by later bins.

I wonder how our kids put up with it. This trip in particular required over an hour’s northward jaunt before angling generally east-northeast, with a 30-minute divot or two along the Nebraska-to-Illinois route. Each detour took in wayward sites, including Alta.

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A look up the rail line opposite the Tillotson elevator revealed the historical trappings of town, with a backdrop of new grain bins.

It is normally a 10-hour drive to get home from visiting their grandparents, but this elevator excursion would tax my children’s patience for several more hours. To be fair, we got an extra early start. But that meant the serious backseat fidgeting would start sooner.

You would think that I would study Tillotson records first, and inject some discipline and efficiency into planning our route.

But no, that task was left for after the trip, so I could see how closely we approached several sites without seeing them.

I don’t think the kids minded the near misses–but they’ll get to see the countryside again when we go through to mop up the strays.

 

As we sensed during our visit, the Tillotson elevator in Hinton, Iowa, was part of big doings

by baggyparagraphs

Hinton by Brad

After our recent post on Tillotson Construction Company’s elevator at Hinton, Iowa, reader Brad Perry sent in one of his own photos of the location, which you see above. We believe the concrete elevator was built in 1954.

Brad also alerted us to some news.

On July 1, the Farmers Cooperative Company, of Hinton, merged its operation that includes the Tillotson elevator with Central Valley Ag, which he calls “a very large” co-op from York, Neb.

Indeed, chief executive Carl Dickinson welcomed FCC in a statement on CVA’s website.

Photo by Kristen Cart

Photo by Kristen Cart

“As we get to know FCC better, my excitement builds around what we can accomplish together,” Dickinson said. “I would like to thank all of the FCC member-owners for their votes (sic) we are thrilled that you have chosen Central Valley Ag for your future.”

Adding Hinton gives CVA some unique advantages. As Brad Perry explains: “Hinton can load 110-car shuttles on three different railroads—UP, CN, and BNSF. It may be the most strategic grain location in the Midwest.”

See CVA’s website for a superb aerial view of Hinton.

As Kristen wrote in her post, “The entire complex has become a far greater enterprise than our grandfathers, builders of the original structures, ever envisioned.”

A long-time elevator man sends greetings from Hardy, Iowa, and shares some lore

by baggyparagraphs

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Story and photos by Larry Larsen

In response to a recent post about Odebolt, Iowa, we heard from Larry Larsen, who works for Gold Eagle Cooperative’s facility in Hardy, Iowa. Larry says Tillotson Construction Company’s elevator, built there in 1956, is “still operating and used daily!”

GilmoreCity08Larry graduated from high school in Gilmore City, Iowa. His father managed an elevator from 1958 to 2008, and Larry remembers high school summers spent cleaning out and painting silos.

After getting in touch with us, Larry took an excursion and delivered some photos of the Gilmore City elevator. It was built in 1949, a year when Tillotson also built elevators in Dalhart, Tex., Hooker, Okla., Hordville, Neb., West Bend, Iowa, and Montevideo, Minn., among other places.

Larry, who served 25 years in the United States Army, shared these additional reminiscences:

“I know a lot of the facilities in my old stomping grounds are [built by] Todd & Sargent. The facilities built in the 1980s and 1990s were done by Lambert & Hamlin.

“Interesting thing–I found out through my dad in early 2000s that Lambert & Hamlin built or started to build two concrete tanks in the town of Rutland, Iowa, and about halfway into that project they went bankrupt, causing Pro Cooperative to find a contractor mid-pour to finish the project.

GilmoreCity06“Pro Cooperative then became receiver of Lambert & Hamlin’s property in Sioux City.

“A lot of interesting history in many of the small towns all around the Midwest with the construction of elevators. Some communities had their population double when crews came to town.

“Reading the blogs, there was also a lot of tragedy involved, with people falling off the partially completed structures. I remember, in the early ’80s, Lambert & Hamlin was doing a slip in the tiny town of Pioneer, Iowa.

“They had a laborer who was smoking pot as he was tying rebar on the night shift. Said individual stopped tying rebar to light a joint, lost his balance, and fell 80 or so feet to his death.

“Slipping never paused for that.”

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Looking inside and outside of Tillotson’s elevator in Cavalier, N.D.

by baggyparagraphs

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Story by Ronald Ahrens with photos by Scott Hansen

While looking at the specifications for Tillotson Construction Company’s concrete elevator built at Cavalier, N.D., in 1948, we gave a call to CHS, Inc. and reached Scott Hansen, who oversees operations at the 460,000-bushel facility there.

South view.

South view. Click on the image to enlarge it.

Hansen said the Tillotson elevator is mainly used for extra capacity during harvest. The operation mainly handles wheat, he said in a subsequent text message, “but also a lot of soybeans and corn.”

He offered to take some pictures, and we present them here, along with repeating the specs from our post of July 27.

This elevator was built according to the plan used for an elevator at Sheldon, Iowa, in 1941. It featured a center driveway and four tanks, each being 14.5 feet in diameter and rising 102 feet. Total capacity was 93,700 bushels.

The job required 1,027 tons of reinforced concrete and 55.13 tons of steel.

At 18 inches thick and covering 1,768 square feet, the main slab supported a gross weight as as high as 5,321 tons. Eight bins were overhead in the 12-by-17-foot driveway.

Crowning the main house was a cupola, or headhouse, of 15.5 x 32 x 22.5 feet, and the pulley center in this single-leg elevator was 127.0 feet above the floor.

North view.

North view. The blue conveyor fills the structure; the gray one on the ground empties it.

Boot and head pulleys were 60 x 14 inches, but the head pulley’s axle diameter of 3-7/16 inches was 1.25 inches greater than the boot’s.

The 14-inch, 6-ply Calumet belt had cups of 12 x 6-inches spaced 10 inches apart. A 20-hp Howell motor supplied the drive in the headhouse. Actual leg capacity was 4500 bushels per hour.

A 2-hp motor operated the man lift. (Lifts in some Tillotson elevators of this era were still hand-operated.)

Cavalier was a fully accessorized elevator, with a 10-bushel load-out scale, an 8-inch load-out spout of 10-gauge steel, and 14-gauge cupola spouting. There was a 7.5-hp truck lift and a dust collection system consisting of a fan, column, and bin.

In the space for remarks at the page’s bottom, we find written, “One end round on cupola.” Yet the photo shows both ends are rounded.

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A Tillotson elevator, fully accessorized when new, remains on call for extra capacity in Cavalier, N.D.

by baggyparagraphs

My uncles have said Tillotson Construction Company built elevators in a swath extending from Alberta, Canada, to the southeastern United States. Records show activity in Estill, S.C. and Millet Ville [sic], S.C., for example, but we haven’t seen anything to substantiate the claim about Alberta.

IMG_6962Tillotson was active in North Dakota, though. In 1948, the company built an elevator in Cavalier, N.D. Named for the early settler Charles Cavileer, this town of about 1,300 people–the seat of Pembina County–is located in the extreme northeastern part of the state, about 20 miles from the United States-Canada border.

After finding the elevator on Google Maps, we made a phone call to the CHS, Inc., on Airport Road, in Cavalier. Scott Hansen, who answered, said the complex, pictured above, has capacity for 460,000 bushels, and the old concrete elevator is used for extra space during the harvest.

The record shows it was built on Tillotson’s Sheldon, Iowa, plan with four tanks, each being 14.5 feet in diameter and standing 102 feet tall. Overall capacity was rated at 93,700 bushels.

The job required 1,027 tons of reinforced concrete and 55.13 tons of steel.

At 18 inches thick and covering 1,768 square feet, the main slab supported a gross weight as as high as 5,321 tons. Eight bins were overhead in the 12-by-17-foot driveway.

IMG_6961Crowning the main house was a cupola, or headhouse, of 15.5 x 32 x 22.5 feet, and the pulley center in this single-leg elevator was 127.0 feet above the floor.

Boot and head pulleys were 60 x 14 inches, but the head pulley’s axle diameter of 3-7/16 inches was 1.25 inches greater than the boot’s.

The 14-inch, 6-ply Calumet belt had cups of 12 x 6-inches spaced 10 inches apart. A 20-hp Howell motor supplied the drive in the headhouse. Actual leg capacity was 4500 bushels per hour.

A 2-hp motor operated the man lift. (Lifts in some Tillotson elevators of this era were still hand-operated.)

Cavalier was a fully accessorized elevator, with a 10-bushel load-out scale, an 8-inch load-out spout of 10-gauge steel, and 14-gauge cupola spouting. There was a 7.5-hp truck lift and a dust collection system consisting of a fan, column, and bin.

In the space for remarks at the page’s bottom, we find written, “One end round on cupola.” Yet the photo shows both ends are rounded.

How we would love to know the job’s cost! Alas, a call to the Pembina County historical society revealed that all old copies of the Cavalier Chronicle are out of our reach on microfilm.

With its stepped headhouse, could the elevator in Odebolt, Iowa, be from Mayer-Osborn’s lineage?

by baggyparagraphs

Story by Ronald Ahrens with photos by Brad Perry

Blen NorthRecords of the Tillotson Construction Company show no information on the grain elevator at Blencoe, Iowa. A previous post presents recent photos from Blencoe as well as delving into mysteries surrounding the Tillotson elevator and the one by Mayer-Osborn Company.

Now Brad Perry volunteers his own photos from Blencoe, which is just off Interstate 29 less than an hour’s drive north of Council Bluffs. Here we see the Tillotson, with the curved headhouse, and the Mayer-Osborn, with the stepped headhouse.

Supplying more photos, Brad raises an interesting question: could the elevator at Odebolt, Iowa, which is 63 miles to the northeast, be part of the Mayer-Osborn lineage? It also has a stepped headhouse. He notes that they had to have been built at the same time. It stood near the elevator of the Cracker Jack Company, which had operations in Odebolt.

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Brad supplies the link to a black-and-white image in the University of Iowa’s digital library.

Lacking Mayer-Osborn records, we can’t say without further probing or perhaps a site visit.

But we’re happy to pursue yet another thread in the story of our grandfathers’ grain elevators.

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Could the previously unidentified Tillotson employee be Mary Melia?

by baggyparagraphs

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Photo from the Virginia Slusher archive

We believe the woman on the far right is Mary Melia. Her husband Marvin also worked for Tillotson Construction Company and served as a pilot. Virginia Slusher is second from right.

Mary Melia died six months ago. Here’s an obitiuary:

Melia, Mary Clare (Burns) Aug 31, 1922 – Dec 29, 2014

Preceded in death by husband, Marvin G. Melia. Survived by children, Marvin G. Melia II of Pleasant Valley, Mo., Mary Lou (Timothy) Brennan, Steven M. (Janet) Melia of Cheyenne, Wyo., and Donald L. Melia; brother, Jack (Carol) Burns of Twenty Nine Palms, Calif.; 10 grandchildren; 10 great grandchildren and many nieces and nephews.

VISITATION Thursday, January 1, 2015 from 4-7 pm with a Rosary at 7 pm at Roeder Mortuary 108th Street Chapel.

FUNERAL SERVICE Friday, January 2, 2015 at 10am at St. Philip Neri Church 8200 N. 30th Street.

Interment Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.

A low-wing airplane sped up business for Tillotson Construction Company

by baggyparagraphs

Navion

Commentary by Tim Tillotson

Note: What follows is from a phone interview on May 14. Here, Uncle Tim recalls flying with Tillotson Construction Company’s pilot Ted Morris.

I remember taking a few trips in that Navion with him. It was one of the last planes Dad bought, the only one with a low wing. That Navion was fast, too, a faster plane. I remember being with him somewhere–where the hell were we?–trying to find a spot to land and picked a spot that looked absolutely wonderful from up there. We didn’t realize till we were almost on the ground that the spot had three-foot-tall grass. We went plowing through that grass and also an electric fence that was in the middle. We had to plow our way out.  

Dad [Reginald “Mike” Tillotson] could never get a license because he had double hernia and all that. Ted was our pilot and we also had Marvin Melia, he flew dad, too. Marvin was giving me flyin’ instructions. We’d go out there to the airport, North Omaha. Marvin’s the one that flew Dad around. They didn’t fly every day, or every week necessarily. He’d been flying Dad two years before. 

Ted came back from KS one time in that Navion, and he said something about, “Let’s go home fast.”

So he’s flying like 200 feet off the ground, really a lot of fun. He radioed in to get clearance for landing, and the communication that came back said, “Where the hell are you? We cant pick you up on the radar!”

Ted said, “I guess we better get up off the deck so they can see it.”