This post was originally published on RETROactive on March 6th, 2012. Farmers across the province will soon be busy with harvest so we thought it appropriate to highlight a previous post associated with Alberta’s agricultural past. Please note that these statistics are from 2012.
The twentieth century saw the rise and fall – literally – of the wooden country grain elevator in Alberta. As rail lines spread across the province, grain elevators sprouted like mushrooms after a spring rain. The high water mark for wooden country grain elevators was in 1934. New elevators were added in every decade, but this has been exceeded by the rate of demolition or closure ever since. Check out the following “index” of Alberta’s wooden country elevators, called “elevators” for short in this list.
The elevator agent in his office was at the heart of the community, 1950s. (Glenbow Archives, Photo: Glenbow Archives, NA-4510-707.)
It’s when the grain is ripe for harvest in late August or early September that I miss going to our local Alberta Wheat Pool elevator the most. Jumping off the combine and going to the elevator to have its friendly agent, Bill, run a moisture test on a grain sample and discuss the state of the crop was one of my jobs on the farm. When I arrived in Alberta in the 1980s, drinking coffee and shooting the breeze with the neighbours while the elevator agent was busy, was part of the culture, but the old-timer grain farmers could smell change the air. How right they were.
Our closest local elevator, a single composite wood crib facility constructed in 1963, at Eckville, closed in 2001. Since then we rarely visit an elevator. Now we have our own moisture tester, analysis market conditions using the internet, and have our grain trucked from the bins in the yard to the inland terminal at Lacombe or further afield—selling grain over the phone and having it trucked to a concrete silo is not much fun!
Alberta Wheat Pool at Eckville (Photo courtesy of the Alberta Heritage Survey, 79-R0240-13.)
In past decades farmers were in and out of the elevator office in a rhythm that reflected the farmer’s seasonal activity. A major reason to go to the elevator was to update the permit book, which kept a record of the type, quantity and grade of grain delivered as well as the number of acres seeded to various grains, and the acreage assigned to each grain for quota purposes. Canadian Wheat Board regulations required that all grain sales, even to local users, be recorded in the permit book.
The permit book had its origins in the quota system on cereal grains introduced during the Second World War. Beginning with the crop year 1941-1942, farmers were only able to deliver limited amounts of grain, based on their acreage, at certain times. The quota system, administered by the Wheat Board, was designed to prevent the clogging of the grain handling system at a time when production exceeded available markets. It continued after the war in an attempt to give each producer an equal opportunity to sell his or her grain at the Wheat Board price for the crop year.
A farmer’s pay check and hence his loyalty to one grain company over another was ultimately determined by whether he could get space in the elevator to deliver his quota of grain. If there was room, some farmers preferred to haul to the Alberta Wheat Pool or United Grain Growers elevator, lured by the promise of patronage dividends on deliveries in relation to the companies’ profits for the year.
Many farmers made a point of being at the elevator office often, not only to find out what was going on but to establish a good relationship with the agent. They sometimes helped out when the agent was especially busy. In years when the harvest was plentiful, railway box cars were often in short supply and elevator storage space was limited, bonds of friendship, along with a reputation for reliable delivery and honesty might ensure one’s grain would be taken in before the neighbour’s.
There were a thousand and one reasons why a farmer might be at the elevator other than when he was delivering grain. He bought coal and flour throughout the year, seed in the spring and from the 1950s, fertilizer. He might be in to check prices, find out if there was space in the elevator for his grain or pick up a cheque for grain previously delivered. Farmers needed the use of the scale at the elevator for inter-farm grain sales, and the elevator agent usually obliged.
UGG promoted a new image of their agents as the dispenser of free advice: “How to get the most from your UGG agent,” Country Guide, August 1961, pag e 41. (Reproduced with the permission of the Glenbow Archives.)
There was no need for a business excuse to go to the elevator. On wet days farmers dropped in to see who else was there, play crib or just to complain about the weather. The elevator office was a good place to catch up on local gossip: who had bought a new tractor, who was selling out, who was renting land from who, and to gauge the relative condition of neighbouring crops, as well as shifting land and machinery auction prices.
Farmers gravitated towards the elevator they dealt with and elevator agents played host to groups of farmer-customers in their cramped offices during visits to town. The elevator agent, urged on by his company to network and increase sales, was part of the community, involved in social and sporting events. At Forshee, a long forgotten elevator siding between Rimbey and Bentley, Harry Proudfoot, a U.G.G. agent from 1946-1968, was a member of several athletic teams, and helped his farmer neighbours during haying season and other times when grain deliveries were slow.
Back in the 1930s when elevator agents often had the only radio in the district, broadcasts were a lure for farmers, who might hope to catch more than the day’s grain prices. In the 1990s farmer went to the elevator to catch the farm weather cast and to watch world-wide commodity trading on cutting-edge computers. The farmers gathered whiled away hours discussing every farming topic under the sun. The agent would go off to receive a load or two of grain, and they would often still be there when he returned from the driveway.
A somewhat idealized artistic perspective on the importance of the grain elevator to the business of the prairie town. Country Guide, March, 1933, page 10, (reproduced with the permission of the Glenbow Archives.)
From the mid-twentieth century, much of the farmer’s economic news, social connections, information about the latest cropping practices, and even family activities and entertainment came through the elevator office as grain companies vied to be foremost in the farmers’ lives and keep their business. All grain companies, especially the farmer-owned Alberta Wheat Pool and United Grain Growers, pushed the image of the grain elevator as the stable symbol of rural life.
It ended for us in 2001. We knew it would happen. We saw elevators topple all over the province after 1995. When Eckville went down in a cloud of dust we did not go to watch. Now in 2014, the Canadian Wheat Board is no more: there are no quotas, no permit book. We market our own grain. Like so many others in the farming community we have lost a connectedness with fellow grain producers and direct involvement with the grain handling system that really was centred in the elevator office.
Radway is home to the 1929 Krause Milling Company Grain Elevator. Beside the elevator are the foundations of a once thriving flour mill: together with the elevator it was part of a grist mill operation located on a spur line from the main C.N. line. The mill exemplified the independent local flour milling industry that accounted for nearly one third of Alberta-milled flour in 1937. It was first licensed to produce 125 barrels (11,136 kg) of No. 1 flour per day.
The Krause Milling Company Elevator and Flour Mill, at Radway. (Photo courtesy of the Radway and Area Historical Archives Association Archives.)
Withold Krause, a second generation Alberta grain buyer and miller, who owned several other elevators and a flour mill in Leduc, built the elevator to his own design, and then began construction of the mill, which opened in 1931.The mill was a sturdily-built rectangular three-storey frame building clad with tin sheeting painted white. A basement addition on the northeast corner housed the diesel engine that ran the machinery and the steam boiler that heated the mill. The main line shaft to drive the roller mills ran beneath the first floor.
Withold Krause designed the flow line (machinery layout) inside the mill to give a flow of about 25 bushels of wheat an hour. The first floor, with solid 3 by 10 plank Douglas fir flooring, housed the tempering bin, the roller mills, and also the bagging chutes where the refinedflour ultimately finished its journey. Bags of flour were stacked for sale or collection on the east side of the first floor. The entrance to the mill and the loading platform were on the south side facing the elevator. On the second floor were the scourer and the centrifugal cloth sifters. The third floor housed a holding bin for wheat, the cylinder where the wheat was washed, and the final sifter.
Roller mills of the type used in the Radway Mill. (Image courtesy of the Radway and Area Historical Archives Association Archives.)
Milling involved a number of steps before flour was produced. Wheat cleaned in the elevator was hauled to the mill to be scoured, washed, tempered and sent to the roller mills. The wheat was run through five roller mills referred to as breaks: each ground the wheat more finely. Each roller mill was connected with a sifter for bolting (refining) the stock (the wheat after the first break). A system of numerous small elevators (cups attached to webbing fabric moving inside wooden chutes), moved the stock between machines and from floor to floor. The flour produced was given a final sifting and bagged. Krause ordered plan white bags without the company’s logo during the height of the depression as so many people wanted to reuse the fabric for clothing.
In the 1930s Krause operated mainly as a grist mill; he took in farmers’ grain at his elevator and they took home its value in flour and by-products such as shorts and bran, picked up at the mill door. Swapping wheat for flour appealed to farmers in a cash-strapped economy. At Radway the farmer did not actually get his own wheat ground. His load of wheat, weighed and graded at the elevator, was given a value in terms of Number 2 Northern Wheat (milling grade) and he was entitled to the flour products from this amount of wheat less a gristing charge of 25 cents per bushel. In his best years, 1932-1933, Krause cleaned about 50,000 bushels of wheat in his elevator and milled it into number one “Kernel” flour and “Creamo,” cream of wheat cereal.
Withold Krause promoted Kernel brand as just as good as the purest of white flours produced by the large milling companies. (Image courtesy of the Radway and Area Historical Archives Association Archives.)
Krause operated the mill during the day time, which was just as well for the village as the mill was powered by a thundering Fairbanks-Morse two-cylinder, two-cycle, 120 horsepower diesel engine. As the engine burst into life, Krause’s son, Vernon recalls “the whole town would shake.”
During World War II, as flour mills in Europe shut down and flour was urgently needed for the war effort, Krause and other millers had limited access to wheat. The Canadian Wheat Board allowed small millers a subsidy on flour sold domestically to compensate, so Krause concentrated on milling for sale, selling in Edmonton and from the mill door.
After the war Krause sold the mill. From 1949 Fred Weder operated the elevator and flour mill business under the banner of the International Grain Company and Radway Flour Mills, respectively. There was a big change in how the mill was operated. Weder ran the mill 24 hours a day, six days a week, producing 140 pound (64 kg) jute bags of low quality unbleached flour for export to countries in the Far East starving due to the ravages of World War II.. Weder shifted the huge diesel engine aside and installed an electric motor. The mill started up at the flick of a switch, and ran quietly ensuring Radway residents got some sleep!
Three two-man teams—a miller and a helper/bagger—operated the mill in eight hour shifts around the clock. More workers were needed to haul clean wheat from the elevator to the mill and load the bags into railcars. The mill crew, mostly local young men, lived in a bunk house nearby. They pushed out at least three box cars of flour a week, over triple the production of the Krause years.
This new level of production took its toll on the flour mill. By 1953 the milling rollers had been pushed to their limit and all the equipment was in need of overall. Fred Weder closed the operation and put the mill up for sale. There were no buyers, and eventually it was dismantled for salvage. Today, the Krause elevator, the only remaining country elevator in Alberta that is associated with the flour milling industry, stands alone next to the foundations of the mill that it once supplied.
As this cartoon indicates some farmers were skeptical of the Buffalo design. (Courtesy of Glenbow Archives, M-800-344.)
Not long ago, Alberta, had country grain elevators named for the indigenous bison that roamed the plains before grain was grown. The innovative Buffalo, as they were called, were designed in Alberta, and constructed in both Alberta and Brazil. In the late 1970s times were good for Alberta’s farmers and their grain Company—the Alberta Wheat Pool. Bumper crops and high grain prices kept the grain elevators humming. As fires destroyed many wood elevators, and the railways were pushing for ever more streamlined grain handling, the Pool decided to use some of its profits to experiment with concrete country elevator designs. It began working with Buffalo Engineering of Edmonton, headed by Klaus U. Drieger. This resulted in a partnership company ABL Engineering Ltd. to produce a design for an elevator that was radically different, and formed a second company, Buffalo Beton Ltd. of Calgary to construct them.
The first design was the trapezoidal Buffalo 1000, colloquially named the Buffalo Slope. In a complete departure from traditional wood-crib elevator design, this elevator was built up using 42 square pre-cast concrete modules, stacked like cord wood at a thirty degrees angle from the ground. The elevator could hold 206,000 bushels. The first was built at Magrath in 1979 and opened with huge fanfare—the festivities included a community band and farmer tours of the facility. Two more Buffalo Slopes were erected in 1981, at Vegreville and Fort Saskatchewan. The Buffalo Slope design worked well with some grains, but the 30 degrees slope was inadequate for barley and oats to slide out the bottom of the module and the complicated conveyor systems were high maintenance. Faced with less than stellar reviews, ABL Engineering went back to the drawing board.
Buffalo Elevator at Magrath in 1997. (Courtesy Alberta Heritage Survey, 97-R0293-17A.)
The second design, the Buffalo 2000, was also constructed with precast panels in conjunction with poured-in-place concrete, although it had a more conventional shape. The elevator has vertical bins with hopped bottoms, fashioned with precast bin floors and cast-in-place concrete bin walls. The Buffalo 2000 holds about 190,000 bushels in thirty bins. The Alberta Wheat Pool built two of these, at Lyalta in 1982 and at Foremost in 1983. These fireproof elevators worked well, but were expensive. The Pool built nine cheaper wood-cribbed double-composite elevators next, the last one at Dapp in 1985. Then in 1986 a final Buffalo 2000 was built at Boyle, a year before the Buffalo consortium folded.
Ironically, the futuristic Buffalo designs were obsolete soon after they were built as the era of the country elevator was over. After 1995 all the grain companies built slip-form concrete silo elevators. These were high capacity high-throughput regional terminal elevators designed to collect grain from hundreds of kilometers around. They were located on spur lines able to handle 52 or 104 car trains. The buffalo, built on railway sidings without sufficient space to load many cars, were too slow for high throughput: a Buffalo could load a grain car in thirty minutes while the new terminal elevators could load one in six to seven minutes. The days of the country elevator were numbered, whether wood-crib or concrete Buffalos. As the wood-crib elevators, even new ones, were demolished, the concrete Buffalo, despite not being used by the grain companies, proved to be survivors as they passed to individual farmer groups. The Canada Malting Company buys and stores malt barley in the Buffalo 2000 at Lyalta. Two were recently demolished: the Buffalo slope at Vegreville and the Buffalo 2000 at Boyle.
Buffalo Elevator at Lyalta in 1997. (Courtesy Alberta Heritage Survey, 97-R0248-17.)
The Buffalo design also survives in Brazil. The Buffalo engineering team designed the huge Buffalo 4000 that was constructed from precast concrete modules to build up bins in a double V pattern. Several of these inland terminals with a capacity ranging from 25,000 tonnes (957, 500 bushels) to 100,000 tonnes (3,750,000 bushels) were constructed in Brazil during the early 1980s. A 25,000 facility was located in Brasilia and another in Campo Grande, Mato Grosso del Sul in central-west Brazil. In the state of Minas Gervais in the west part of the country, where wheat and soy beans are among the main crops, a massive 100,000 tonne Buffalo 4000 was constructed at Uberlandia. The Buffalos of Brazil, where sixty-percent of grain is moved by truck, remain an international monument to Alberta engineering innovation.
The tall silhouette of a wooden grain elevator on the horizon once symbolized rural landscape across the prairies. “Against open space,” in the words of distinguished American photographer Frank Gohlke, “grain elevators were the presence against which that emptiness could be measured.”
A long row of eight elevators had been built at Vulcan by 1924 and provided a backdrop for this harvest scene at Vulcan. (Glenbow Archives, ND-8-218).
Early Elevator Row
In 1891, the Calgary and Edmonton Railway built Siding 19, soon to be named Leduc, on the west side of its mainline. The length of the siding—long enough to build a row of six elevators—showed the railway’s faith in the district’s grain growing potential. By 1905 a row of three elevators lent a vertical silhouette across the tracks from the station. The first grain company to build at a new siding tried to choose the best position for attracting customers, and for loading cars with the greatest ease. Each elevator had sufficient space on the siding to load two grain cars. Elevator construction along the Calgary and Edmonton railway set a pattern followed across Alberta as main lines and branch lines slowly spread their reach.
As elevator rows developed they created a varied sky line: there was considerable difference in size and shape of elevators built from the 1890s to the 1920s. After 1920 many of the early variants were replaced and grain companies built traditional elevators with a gable roof and a gable roofed cupola on top. Wood clad elevators were almost always painted CPR red, and what differentiated each company’s elevator was its name (and its logo, if it had one) painted high up on the walls, emblazoned in white along with the name of the town. In contrast, metal clad elevators were galvanized or painted white.
Elevators Everywhere
Competition between the grain companies resulted in the rapid emergence of rows of elevators at the most significant grain delivery points. By 1911 there were 142 sidings with grain elevators, and 43 of them had three or more elevators. Carstairs, High River and Nanton, along with Edmonton and Calgary, had five elevators, while Westaskiwin had six. Eight years later, in 1919, the total number of elevator delivery points in the province totalled 334, of which 150 had three or more elevators. Barons had emerged as the point with the longest row of elevators, with eight, followed by Nanton with seven. A number of towns had six: Blackie, Bow Island, Carmangay, Chinook, Claresholm, Cluny, Gleichen, Granum, Magrath, Oyen, Provost, Vulcan, and Youngstown. Edmonton and Calgary also had six. The points with the largest elevator capacities were mainly in the wheat-growing area of the southern part of the province, but by the 1940s as farming thrived in the Peace River country, impressive rows evolved at Sexsmith and Grimshaw. Vulcan in southern Alberta however, holds the record for the longest row—12 elevators in 1956.
The elevator row became a towering beacon for Alberta’s growing hamlets, villages, and towns with bustling commercial main streets and residential areas. Through the 1950s into the 1960s a long unbroken row symbolized prosperity. A town with five elevators rather than three had a more lucrative tax base and better services, all of which could be traced back to its life line—the railway.
Barons, 1913. (Glenbow Archives, NA-2059-27)
Elevator Consolidation Begins
From the 1960s, as paved highways increasingly linked Alberta’s major towns with hamlets and rural districts, and one railway station after another closed in smaller centres and on branch lines that were being abandoned, farmers chose to take their business to larger centres. Farmers benefitted from the competition between elevators at larger centres, and grain companies closed more isolated grain buying points due to loss of business, the threat of further branch line closure and changes in car allocation rules. Grain companies consolidated their elevators making for longer rows at fewer points. Towns that had secured multiple elevators flourished; the more elevators in a town, the greater its prestige and the better its prospects for business and further development seemed to be.
All the Colours of the Rainbow
It was in the 1960s that elevator row began to take on the appearance that many of us remember. The grain companies repainted their elevators when the CPR red began to fade. First came white, adopted by the United Grain Growers. A splash of colour marked the beginning of modern company branding. First came white, adopted by the United Grain Growers. Pioneer Grain Company first painted the shingled roofs of their elevators yellow, and then in 1962 went for bright orange on the elevator walls, complemented by yellow roofs. The story goes that on the Victoria Day weekend in 1962 as a Pioneer engineer and his wife toured the countryside, she suggested orange (the colour of her pants that day) would cheer up the appearance of the elevators on the landscape. The company agreed to the experiment and the first dazzling orange elevators on prairie rows surprised everyone. Federal Grain adopted white by the time it took over Alberta Pacific Grain (1943) Ltd. in 1968. The Alberta Wheat Pool adopted a turquoise green colour, which slowly dominated the rows after 1972 as AWP took over Federal Grain in 1972, painting all the white Federal elevators turquoise-green as well. Parrish and Heimbecker adopted a mustard colour in 1976.
The Fall of the Sentinel
More change came to elevator row as the grain companies began to replace ageing elevators with larger single and double composite elevator designs in the 1970s. The sky line began to transform as holes began to appear in the great Alberta rows. By the 1980s elevator row was gap-toothed. Grain companies rapidly consolidated business on sidings where there was enough room to fill more grain cars at one time. Then in 1995 the federal government ended the Crow Rate that subsidized freight rates to the port terminals, and deregulated the railways in 1996. The economy of scale changed. In 1997 there were still major rows of elevator complexes that sometimes included an older elevator as an annex: six at Hussar, six at McGrath, six at Sexsmith, five at Standard, four at Arrowood, and four at Champion and finally seven at Warner. The same year, scores of unwanted elevators, many remnants of once proud rows began to fall. Finally, at the turn of the 21st century, operating grain elevator rows were completely replaced by large inland concrete terminal silo-style structures. Warner is an aberration: with six of its original traditional elevators (forming four elevator complex facilities) still standing and used to handle the local mustard crop, it is a significant legacy of a vanished skyline.
Written by: Judy Larmour.
Barons, 1913. (Glenbow Archives, NA-2059-27)
A long row of eight elevators had been built at Vulcan by 1924 and provided a backdrop for this harvest scene at Vulcan. (Glenbow Archives, ND-8-218).
Elevator row at Vegreville in 1926 illustrates the variety of heights and shapes that defined Alberta’s skyline. (Provincial Archives of Alberta, B.2749.)
Elevator row at Consort, 1950s. (Provincial Archives of Alberta, PA116.2.).
Warner elevator row as it appeared in 1997. Today the six elevator row at Warner, albeit with modifications, is the longest elevator row standing in Alberta. (Alberta Heritage Survey, 97-R0297-09a).
The story of the Alberta Wheat Pool Elevator at Leduc.
Leduc Grain Elevator in 2007. Photo by Judy Larmour, Courtesy of Alberta Legacy Development Society.
Have any elevator enthusiasts out there ever noticed that the former Alberta Wheat Pool Elevator at Leduc looks a little different? It is a unique low-profile version of the Pool’s single composite 130,000 bushel elevator built on a standard plan during the 1960s and 1970s. It’s also unique as the only grain elevator that lies directly under the flight path to the main runway of an international airport and therein lies a story.
In 1976 the Alberta Wheat Pool revealed its intent to build a new elevator at the siding in Leduc. It wanted an elevator that would have a large enough capacity to replace all their aging elevators on the row, allowing for easier and more efficient grain handling. A single composite elevator built to the standard design stood normally over 27 meters hight (approximately 90 feet). This was considered a navigational hazard for airplanes approaching the airport—too high to get clearance from Transport Canada. So the Alberta Wheat Pool engineers went back to the drawing board to adjust the design, reducing its height. Transport Canada was satisfied with the new design, gave the green light and Leduc issued a building permit. Work began under AWP construction foreman Jim Pearson in spring 1978.
All elevators were basically built the same way. First a hole was excavated, cement foundation pads were poured and the steel pan set flush in the pit. The crew began construction of the sturdy cribbed walls, built to withstand the weight of the grain. The cribbing timbers were laid flat and spiked together. The cribbing of the exterior walls continued in rounds, in step with the cribbing of the inside bins, so that the elevator rose at an even height. As the cribbing progressed the crew installed the leg to elevate the grain, the distribution spout or gerber, the hopper and scales on the work floor, and the loading spout to the track below. The cupola on top was put together with pre-cut wood studs and shiplap or plywood walls. Finally the driveway was added, and the whole structure was clad with wood siding.
At Leduc, as Pearson later explained, changes had to be made to the standard plan. Instead of the standard 67 foot walls, the walls and bins were cribbed up only 59 feet, and the cribbing strength was reduced proportionately to the overall height of the building. The standard rounds of 2 by 6 cribbing were reduced by 5 feet and the higher 2 by 4 cribbing by 3 feet. To partially compensate for the lost volume, the design incorporated an annex 10 feet longer than was standard, giving the structure a footprint of 38 feet by 100 feet.
Lowering the walls 8 feet was still not enough to meet the required height restrictions. Another factor came into play. Elevators compress when they are filled with grain. The term telescope is used to describe a number of ways to allow the building to move in response to changing loads without causing damage to the structure. Normally, the leg is in one piece, so the cupola must be high enough to clear it as the elevator compresses. The Pool, wishing to install two metal legs—one for receiving grain and one for shipping, as was common by the 1970s—had to devise special legs at Leduc. They were telescoped in the middle and moved with the elevator to allow a lower profile than the standard one piece leg. A floating pulley in the pit took up the slack in the belt inside the leg. This one-of-a-kind system designed by Pool engineers allowed them to construct the cupola thirty inches below the regular height. When the new elevator was complete it was about the same height as the three 1920s elevators that it replaced.
The flight path-friendly elevator, with a capacity of 121, 000 bushels, was more expensive than a standard elevator. It cost $592,752 to build and opened in December 1978—the official ribbon cutting deferred until April 1979. It proudly served the farmers of Leduc until July 2000. When its days were clearly numbered and it, too, was faced with demolition the newly formed Alberta Legacy Development Society sprang into action to ensure its survival. Designated as a Provincial Historic Resource in 2003 and with fresh coat of paint in September 2007, it flaunts the once familiar and omnipresent Alberta Wheat Pool crest and logo.
So the next time you fly over Leduc into Edmonton, just before landing, look down to spot Alberta’s special stubby, one of the last Alberta Wheat Pool single-composite elevators standing and still the tallest building in downtown Leduc.
We’ve published articles on Alberta’s historic grain elevators in the past and they’ve struck a cord. We’re preparing a few more articles about Alberta elevator’s, so stay tuned. In the meantime, we though you may wish to know how a grain elevator worked.
A diagram of a standard grain elevator.
The interior of a traditional elevator contained two open areas: an attached covered driveway and an open space under the suspended bins, known as the work floor, in the centre of the elevator. A fully-loaded vehicle was parked on the large receiving scale, which took up most of the driveway floor. The agent weighed a farmer’s fully-loaded truck, wagon or sleigh using a balance beam to the side of the scale. The farmer then dumped his load through a grate on the scale floor and the now empty vehicle was re-weighed. The agent took a sample of the grain, which he analysed for type and quality.
The grain flowed through the grate into the pit below. This pit was an open triangular shaped steel pan. The agent then used the leg to elevate the grain from the pan or pit. The leg stretched from the pit to the top of the elevator. The leg — originally powered by a 15 horsepower, one-cylinder gasoline engine mounted under the office, and later by an electric motor—was an endless belt with cups attached running inside a wooden chute up the elevator,. As the leg turned, it elevated grain to the head distribution spout or gerber. The gerber was moved from one bin spout to another to direct the grain to the desired bin. The gerber was controlled from the work floor with a wooden pedal and a large hand wheel attached to the front of the leg chute.
Most spouts in the cupola fed into a storage bins (there were at least 18 but often more). The load was stored in a bin holding the same type and grade of grain. One spout led directly outside the elevator on the track side; it could be positioned over the track for loading grain into grain cars. Another spout returned grain from within the elevator to the driveway where it could be dumped into a waiting wagon or truck.
When the agent wanted to ship a quantity of grain he drew grain from the selected bin into the shipping scale bellow the scale hopper. After it was weighed the grain was dropped into the pit, the leg re-elevated itand directed it through the gerber and into the rail car loading spout and down into a grain car waiting on the siding beside the elevator.
Alberta Wheat Pool Grain Elevator (DSC_5353 Historic Resources Management Branch).
Today’s blog post will no doubt please all of our railroad and grain elevator enthusiasts out there in the ether. On August 27, 2012, the Alberta Wheat Pool Grain Elevator in Big Valley was designated as a Provincial Historic Resource and added to the Alberta Register of Historic Places. This grain elevator has heritage significance due essentially to the fact that it is…, well, it’s a grain elevator. These once dominant, landmark structures in rural Alberta have become iconic symbols, speaking to the province’s agricultural, social and railroad transportation history. This particular elevator also contributes to the cultural landscape of Big Valley, aiding in the visual communication of the community’s history as one of the province’s busiest railroad divisional points.
Wood-cribbed grain elevators such as the Alberta Wheat Pool elevator in Big Valley were once a dominant presence in the lives of most rural Albertans. These imposing, structures stood out on the horizon and could be seen from miles around. They were essential facilities for the sorting, storage, and transportation of grains and, as such, they also served an important social function as meeting places for area farmers. Although there were some variations in elevator design, size and services, they remained consistently similar in basic design and form over the years. This Alberta Wheat Pool grain elevator was a relatively late addition, being built in 1960, but it shares much with its earlier predecessors, notably its vertical orientation, gable-roofed cupola, shed-roofed drive shed with earthen ramps and overall lack of fenestration.
View of the Alberta Wheat Pool Grain Elevator, Big Valley (DSC_2647 Historic Resources Management Branch).
In 1912, Big Valley had been selected as a divisional point on the Canadian Northern Railway’s (CNoR) Battle River Subdivision. At one point it possessed a large railyard and a number of important railroad maintenance facilities and storage areas for fuel, water and freight. Largely supported by the railroad, Big Valley was a bustling centre with a large population. In the late-1920s, Big Valley’s boom period came to an end when the divisional point was moved to Mirror on the former Grand Trunk Pacific Railway line.
Although the 1960 Alberta Wheat Pool grain elevator was built long after the Big Valley’s glory days as a divisional point, its presence adds to the interpretation of the community’s railroad heritage, particularly when considered together with the presence of other designated historical resources, such as the historic CNoR railway station and the remains of the roundhouse and frequent visits by the Canadian National Railways 6060 steam locomotive.
When the Canadian Pacific Railway began to survey a grade west from Lacombe to Kerrobert, Saskatchewan in 1904, a number of prospective farmers began to apply for homesteads on land just off of the rail grade. By 1906, interest began to subside, for the line had not gotten east of Stettler. In the spring of 1909 however, the government of Alberta announced lucrative bond guarantees for the extension of branch lines, and, during the following summer, construction activity was intense throughout the province. This included the CPR line east from Stettler to the Beaver Dam Creek. Here, at the end of steel, a station was erected and a townsite subdivided called Castor, the French word for Beaver. As the agricultural hinterland instantly filled up with settlers, the community of Castor became an agricultural boom town. In November 1909, it was incorporated as a village, and, in June of the following year, it became a town with over 500 people, holding all the commercial and social facilities required of a farming center.
Among the necessities for such a town were grain elevators. As early as June 1910, it was announced that the Alberta Pacific Grain Company was building at Castor, Halkirk and Tees. The 35,000 bushel structure at Castor would be completed later that fall. During the winter of 1910-11, local farmers were able to market their grain. In an unusual move, the elevator was located on the same side of the railway track as Main Street. In 1913, the rail line was extended eastward past Coronation, eventually reaching Kerr Robert. This gave Castor a direct line to the grain terminals at the Lakehead. As a result, three other elevators were soon built, and Castor soon began to benefit from the high grain prices of World War I. Indeed, by 1917, the original Alberta Pacific elevator was proving too small, and so the Company constructed a larger one, designed to store upward to 45,000 bushels.
Although Castor soon began to decline as a community, its population dropping to 625 by 1941, the elevators continued to survive, being in the center of such a rich agricultural district. In 1967, The 1917 Alberta Pacific structure was taken over by the Federal Grain Company, and, in 1972, by the Alberta Wheat Pool. Its most recent owner/operator was the United Grain Growers, which closed it down in the mid 1990’s in favor of a larger and more efficiently run concrete structure in the district. The structure survived however and was eventually acquired by the Castor & District Museum Society, which is attempting to undertake its restoration.
The historical significance of the Alberta Pacific Grain Elevator in Castor lies in its provision of structural evidence of the method of storing and marketing grain in rural Alberta during most of the 20th century. This structure is particularly important in that it dates from 1917, a period in time when crops were bountiful and the demand for wheat was high because of the war in Europe. It is important also for the role it played in the development of Castor, a community which sprang to life in 1910 with the arrival of the railway, and continued to serve a large agricultural hinterland, the existence of which depended upon the marketing of grain.
Written by: David Leonard, Historian
Visit the Alberta Register of Historic Places to learn more about the heritage value of the Alberta Pacific Grain Elevator. In order for a site to be designated a Provincial Historic Resource, it must possess province-wide significance. To properly assess the historic importance of a resource, a historian crafts a context document that situates a resource within its time and place and compares it to similar resources in other parts of the province. This allows staff to determine the importance of a resource to a particular theme, time, and place. Above, is some of the historical information used in the evaluation of the Alberta Pacific Grain Elevator.
In February one of our Facebook fans asked how many grain elevators still stand on the Alberta horizon. Dorothy Field, our Heritage Survey Program Coordinator has compiled some statistics.
The twentieth century saw the rise and fall – literally – of the wooden country grain elevator in Alberta. As rail lines spread across the province, grain elevators sprouted like mushrooms after a spring rain. The high water mark for wooden country grain elevators was in 1934. New elevators were added in every decade, but this has been exceeded by the rate of demolition or closure ever since. Check out the following “index” of Alberta’s wooden country elevators, called “elevators” for short in this list.
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