Grain elevator

Bucket elevators are used to lift grain to a distributor or consignor, from which it falls through spouts and/or conveyors and into one or more bins, silos, or tanks in a facility.

As grain is emptied from bins, tanks, and silos, it is conveyed, blended, and weighted into trucks, railroad cars, or barges for shipment.

[2] Both necessity and the prospect of making money gave birth to the steam-powered grain elevator in Buffalo, New York, in 1843.

It stood at the intersection of two great all-water routes; one extended from New York Harbor, up the Hudson River to Albany, and beyond it, the Port of Buffalo; the other comprised the Great Lakes, which could theoretically take boaters in any direction they wished to go (north to Canada, west to Michigan or Wisconsin, south to Toledo and Cleveland, or east to the Atlantic Ocean).

If Buffalo had not been there, or when things got backed up there, that grain would have been loaded onto boats at Cincinnati and shipped down the Mississippi River to New Orleans.

They still relied upon techniques that had been in use since the European Middle Ages; work teams of stevedores use block and tackles and their own backs to unload or load each sack of grain that had been stored ashore or in the boat's hull.

Thanks to the historic Dart's Elevator (operational on 1 June 1843), which worked almost seven times faster than its nonmechanized predecessors, Buffalo was able to keep pace with—and thus further stimulate—the rapid growth of American agricultural production in the 1840s and 1850s, but especially after the Civil War, with the coming of the railroads.

Because of the money to be made in grain production, and of course, because of the existence of an all-water route to get there, increasing numbers of immigrants in Brooklyn came to Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to become farmers.

Through this loop of productivity set in motion by the invention of the grain elevator, the United States became a major international producer of wheat, corn, and oats.

[1] In the early 20th century, concern arose about monopolistic practices in the grain elevator industry, leading to testimony before the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1906.

[3] Today, grain elevators are a common sight in the grain-growing areas of the world, such as the North American prairies.

Larger terminal elevators are found at distribution centers, such as Chicago and Thunder Bay, Ontario, where grain is sent for processing, or loaded aboard trains or ships to go further afield.

In a nascent trend, some of the city's inactive capacity has recently come back online, with an ethanol plant started in 2007 using one of the previously mothballed elevators to store corn.

In the early 20th century, Buffalo's grain elevators inspired modernist architects such as Le Corbusier, who exclaimed, "The first fruits of the new age!"

The classic grain elevator was constructed with wooden cribbing and had nine or more larger square or rectangular bins arranged in 3 × 3 or 3 × 4 or 4 × 4 or more patterns.

The loss of the grain elevators from small towns is often considered a great change in their identity, and efforts to preserve them as heritage structures are made.

For example, in 1961, 1,642 "country elevators" (the smallest type) were in Alberta, holding 3,452,240 tonnes (3,805,440 short tons) of grain.

In 2017, the United States had 0.88 cubic kilometres (25 billion US bushels) of storage capacity, a growth of 25% over the previous decade.

[5] The city of Buffalo is not only the birthplace of the modern grain elevator, but also has the world's largest number of extant examples.

In the early pioneer days of Western Canada's prairie towns, when a good farming spot was settled, many people wanted to make money by building their own grain elevators.

In the mid-1990s, with the cost of grain so low, many private elevator companies once again had to merge, this time causing thousands of "prairie sentinels" to be torn down.

[42] During the sixth season of the History Channel series Ax Men, one of the featured crews takes on the job of dismantling the Globe Elevator in Wisconsin.

Saskatchewan Wheat Pool No. 7, Thunder Bay , Ontario
The Port Perry mill and grain elevator, circa 1930: Built in 1873, it is the oldest grain elevator in Canada and remains a major landmark to this day. The line of the PW&PP Railway can be seen in the foreground.
Typical "wood-cribbed" design for grain elevators throughout Western Canada , a common design used from the early 1900s to mid-1980s: The former Ogilvie Flour Mill elevator in Wrentham, Alberta , was built in 1925.
A 1928 Burrus Elevator steel-reinforced concrete elevator with 123 silos shown just prior to demolition in 2004
Silos connected to a grain elevator on a farm in Israel
Corrugated-steel grain bins and cable-guyed grain elevator at a grain elevator in Hemingway, South Carolina
Old wooden cribbed grain elevator and livestock feedmill in Estherville, Iowa
These houses in Halifax , Nova Scotia were constructed in the 1990s long after the elevator had been constructed and are vulnerable due to their location. In the summer of 2003, an explosion at this elevator sparked a fire that took seven hours to extinguish. [ 4 ]
Jump-formed concrete annex silos on the left and slip-formed concrete mainhouse at an elevator facility in Edon, Ohio
A view along Buffalo's "Elevator Alley".
Lake Shore Elevator seen in Toledo, Ohio in 1895
General Mills grain-distribution facility detail, Idaho Falls, Idaho
Home Grain Co. wooden cribbed elevator at the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village in Alberta
Alberta Wheat Pool elevator Ltd. wooden cribbed elevator at the Scandia Eastern Irrigation District Museum in Scandia, Alberta
Swissmill Tower , upper Limmat Valley in the Canton of Zürich
Wheeler Elevator, Buffalo
Ranchway Feeds mill and elevator, Fort Collins, Colorado
Circle B grain elevator, Concordia, Kansas
Historic Cooperative Elevator, a row of corrugated steel hopper bottom bins on the left and cribbed annex bins on the right, Crowell, Texas
Reading Company Grain Elevator near Center City, Philadelphia , now converted into offices