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60-521: In the early 20th century wheat farming was expanding fast in the Canadian prairies. Saskatchewan had 13,445 active farms in 1901 covering 600,000 acres (240,000 ha). By 1911 the province had 95,013 farms covering 9,100,000 acres (3,700,000 ha), mostly growing wheat. By 1916 there were 104,006 farms with 14,000,000 acres (5,700,000 ha) of cultivated land. For years the prairie farmers complained of unfair treatment and lack of true competition between

120-577: A National Historic Sites of Canada . The Warner elevator row is, as of 2019, not designated a historic site, and is still in use as commercial grain elevators. All companies operating elevators in Canada are licensed by the Canadian Grain Commission . This is a list of grain elevators that are either in the process of becoming heritage sites or museums , or have been preserved for future generations. The Manchester Ship Canal grain elevator

180-457: A class solidarity and a fear and loathing of the ruling elite . Specifically they despised the private grain trade system as symbolized by Winnipeg Grain Exchange . Farmers suspected the grain traders of being middle men who only profited by leeching off the efforts of farmers without adding any value . They were especially angered by the practice of hedging that private traders used on

240-520: A chain reaction that would destroy the entire structure. (This dispersed-fuel explosion is the mechanism behind fuel-air bombs .) To prevent this, elevators have very rigorous rules against smoking or any other open flame. Many elevators also have various devices installed to maximize ventilation, safeguards against overheating in belt conveyors, legs, bearings, and explosion-proof electrical devices such as electric motors , switches, and lighting . Grain elevators in small Canadian communities often had

300-466: 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. Buffalo, New York, the world's largest grain port from the 1850s until the first half of the 20th century, once had

360-629: A destructive fire that gutted much of the nearby milling district. (The Washburn "A" mill was later rebuilt and continued to be used until 1965.) Another example occurred in 1998, when the DeBruce grain elevator in Wichita, Kansas , exploded and killed seven people. An explosion on October 29, 2011, at the Bartlett Grain Company in Atchison, Kansas , killed six people. Two more men received severe burns, but

420-441: A row along the railway tracks. If a town were lucky enough to have two railways, it was to be known as the next Montreal . Many elevator rows had two or more elevators of the same company. Small towns bragged of their large elevator rows in promotional pamphlets to attract settlers. With so much competition in the 1920s, consolidation began almost immediately, and many small companies were merged or absorbed into larger companies. In

480-546: A single grain-laden boat. Grain shipments were going down the Mississippi River, not over the Great Lakes/Erie Canal system. A merchant named Joseph Dart Jr., is generally credited as being the one who adapted Oliver Evans ' grain elevator (originally a manufacturing device) for use in a commercial framework (the trans-shipment of grain in bulk from lakers to canal boats), but the actual design and construction of

540-454: A tower containing a bucket elevator or a pneumatic conveyor , which scoops up grain from a lower level and deposits it in a silo or other storage facility. In most cases, the term "grain elevator" also describes the entire elevator complex, including receiving and testing offices, weighbridges , and storage facilities. It may also mean organizations that operate or control several individual elevators, in different locations. In Australia,

600-535: Is a co-operative that markets grain (mostly wheat) on behalf of its farmer-members. In Canada in 1923 and 1924, three wheat pools were created. They were farmer-owned co-operatives , created to break the power of the large for-profit corporations, that had dominated the grain trade in Western Canada since the late 19th Century, and were an early source of Western alienation . The wheat pools were successful grain traders and marketers from 1923 to 1929. During

660-599: Is doubtful if it [SCEC] has helped them much, except as a powerful and keen competitor with other firms." The poorer farmers saw the SCEC and UGG as no different from the other grain companies apart from the fact that their owners were prosperous farmers. Early in 1924 wheat pool organizers, inspired by their success in Alberta, began campaigns to sign up farmers in Saskatchewan and Alberta. The two farm organizations in Saskatchewan lent

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720-522: Is emptied from bins, tanks, and silos, it is conveyed, blended, and weighted into trucks, railroad cars , or barges for shipment. In Australian English , the term "grain elevator" is reserved for elevator towers, while a receival and storage building or complex is distinguished by the formal term "receival point" or as a "wheat bin" or "silo". Large-scale grain receival, storage, and logistics operations are known in Australia as bulk handling. In Canada,

780-552: Is milled or ground to remove stones, which could strike sparks from the millstones, and the use of magnets to remove metallic debris able to strike sparks. The earliest recorded flour explosion took place in an Italian mill in 1785, but many have occurred since. These two references give numbers of recorded flour and dust explosions in the United States in 1994: and 1997 In the ten-year period up to and including 1997, there were 129 explosions. Canadian Prairie grain elevators were

840-402: Is the need to provide separate storage for ordinary and genetically modified grain to reduce the risk of accidental mixing of the two. In the past, grain elevators sometimes experienced silo explosions . Fine powder from the millions of grains passing through the facility would accumulate and mix with the oxygen in the air. A spark could spread from one floating particle to the other, creating

900-610: The Atlantic Ocean ). All through the 1830s, Buffalo benefited tremendously from its position. In particular, it was the recipient of most of the increasing quantities of grain (mostly wheat) that was being grown on farms in Ohio and Indiana , and shipped on Lake Erie for trans-shipment to the Erie Canal. 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

960-733: The Civil War , with the coming of the railroads . The world's second and third grain elevators were built in Toledo, Ohio, and Brooklyn , New York, in 1847. These fledgling American cities were connected through an emerging international grain trade of unprecedented proportions. Grain shipments from farms in Ohio were loaded onto ships by elevators at Toledo; these ships were unloaded by elevators at Buffalo that shipped their grain to canal boats (and, later, rail cars), which were unloaded by elevators in Brooklyn, where

1020-521: The Great Depression , however, huge losses forced them out of the grain marketing business. They persisted as grain elevator operators but after 1935 all grain marketing in Canada shifted to a new government agency, Canadian Wheat Board . During the post-war era, the wheat pools almost completely replaced the private grain companies as elevator operators. By the 1990s, however, most had demutualized (privatized), and several mergers occurred. Now all

1080-539: The Mississippi River to New Orleans . By 1842, Buffalo's port facilities clearly had become antiquated. 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. Several days, sometimes even a week, were needed to serve

1140-631: The United Grain Growers (U.G.G.) and the Saskatchewan-government backed Saskatchewan Co-operative Elevator Company (Sask. Co-op Elevators). U.G.G. was formed by merger of two smaller co-ops: the Alberta government-backed Alberta Farmers' Co-operative Elevator Company and the Grain Growers Grain Company (G.G.G.C., which had previously acquired the elevators of failed Manitoba government elevator company) in 1917. Following

1200-401: The futures exchange , which they believed allowed traders to profit from falling markets, hurting farmers. They also believed that private traders artificially held down prices during the fall harvest in order to shortchange producers. Some attempts had been made to set up co-operative grain elevators. There were many local co-ops that owned a single elevator, but the two most important were

1260-535: The Canadian Co-Operative Wheat Producers to market the grain. The SCEC raised difficulties about letting the pool use its elevators, so the pool's leaders made arrangements with private companies, and then started to build its own. In 1925 the pool offered to buy the SCEC's elevators. At the December annual meeting of the SCEC the farmer delegates overrode the board, and forced the SCEC to consider

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1320-565: The SCEC was operating 190 elevators, and by 1917 had 230. In 1912 the GGGC had also entered the elevator business when it began to operate 135 country elevators leased from the government of Manitoba. In 1917 the GGGC merged with the AFCEC to form the United Grain Growers (UGG). The SCEC was involved in the merger discussions, but in the end decided not to join the UGG. By 1920 the SCEC had 318 licensed elevators, and

1380-475: The United States had 0.88 cubic kilometres (25 billion US bushels) of storage capacity, a growth of 25% over the previous decade. 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. A number of the city's historic elevators are clustered along "Elevator Alley", a narrow stretch of the Buffalo River immediately adjacent to

1440-423: The United States' largest capacity for the storage of grain in over 30 concrete grain elevators located along the inner and outer harbors. While several are still in productive use, many of those that remain are presently idle. 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

1500-400: The United States. In farming communities, each town had one or more small grain elevators that served the local growers. 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. Wooden-cribbed elevators usually had a driveway with truck scale and office on one side, a rail line on

1560-570: The agrarian reformer Edward Alexander Partridge of Sintaluta. The organization meeting for the Grain Growers' Grain Company (GGGC) was held in Sintaluta , Manitoba on 27 January 1906, with Partridge as the first president. The GGGC was a cooperative marketing company, but at first did not own elevators. In 1908 Partridge published the "Partridge Plan" in which he advocated many reforms to the structure of

1620-491: The company's capital requirements came from a government-guaranteed loan that the SCEC would repay from its income. John Archibald Maharg (1872–1944) was the first president, holding office until 1923. The SCEC built forty elevators in 1911 and leased six. It built 93 elevators in 1912. In 1913 the Alberta Farmers’ Co-operative Elevator Company (AFCEC) was created using the same model. By 1916

1680-739: The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, Buffalo enjoyed a unique position in American geography. 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

1740-544: The early 20th century, Buffalo's grain elevators inspired modernist architects such as Le Corbusier , who exclaimed, "The first fruits of the new age!" when he first saw them. Buffalo's grain elevators have been documented for the Historic American Engineering Record and added to the National Register of Historic Places . Currently, Enid, Oklahoma , holds the title of most grain storage capacity in

1800-476: The existing line elevator companies, who owned the grain elevators where the grain was stored before being loaded into railway cars. In response to these complaints the Manitoba Grain Act was passed in 1900. The act was well-meaning, but at first was ineffective, and a series of amendments were needed to iron out the flaws. The Saskatchewan Co-operative Elevator Company (SCEC) had its roots in agitation by

1860-648: The farmers rather than by the government. In 1911 legislation was passed by which the Saskatchewan Co-operative Elevator Company (SCEC) was incorporated to run elevators under this model. The SCEC was a joint-stock cooperative company whose shares would be sold only to farmers, who could not buy more than ten shares each. The government guaranteed the company's credit. The SCEC was to provide elevator services for local farmers, and later expanded into selling grain. Farmers could buy shares with nominal value of CAN$ 50 for just CAN$ 7.50. The remainder of

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1920-716: The first manager of the SCEC, was later premier of Saskatchewan. J. B. Musselman, an influential Liberal and former secretary of the SCEC, was given a position in the SCEC when he was forced to leave the SGGA by reformers. The SCEC's relationship with the Liberals drew criticism from those who felt that a cooperative should be politically neutral, particularly from those who did not support the Liberals. The SCEC drew criticism for being too conservative, unwilling to expand from running elevators into marketing grain. Its directors were elected at central meetings, so did not represent local needs. The SCEC

1980-637: The former wheat pools are part of the Viterra corporation, which itself was acquired by Glencore Xstrata in 2013. The pools were the culmination of a long tradition of agrarian activism dating back decades in the Prairie Provinces of Canada which peaked in the 1920s. One notable date was the founding of the Territorial Grain Growers Association (T.G.G.A.) in 1901. The T.G.G.A.'s successor organizations would be important organizers in

2040-742: The grain elevator at Ellerslie, Alberta , remained marked with its old community name until it was demolished, which took place more than 20 years after the village had been annexed by Edmonton . One of the major historical trends in the grain trade has been the closure of many smaller elevators and the consolidation of the grain trade to fewer places and among fewer companies. 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. By 2010, only 79 "primary elevators" (as they are now known) remained, holding 1,613,960 tonnes (1,779,090 short tons). Despite this consolidation, overall storage capacity has increased in many places. In 2017,

2100-460: The grain industry, including government ownership of elevators. Under pressure, the Manitoba government purchased elevators in 1910, but the operation was not successful. The elevators were leased by the GGGC in 1912. In Saskatchewan premier Thomas Walter Scott arranged for a Royal Commission on Elevators in 1910. The commission recommended a system where the elevators would be cooperatively owned by

2160-891: The grain was either distributed to East Coast flour mills or loaded for further shipment to England , the Netherlands , or Germany . This eastern flow of grain, though, was matched by an equally important flow of people and capital in the opposite direction, that is, from east to west. 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. More farmers meant more prairies turned into farmlands, which in turn meant increased grain production, which of course meant that more grain elevators would have to be built in places such as Toledo, Buffalo, and Brooklyn (and Cleveland, Chicago , and Duluth ). Through this loop of productivity set in motion by

2220-505: The harbor. The alley runs under Ohio Street and along Childs Street in the city's First Ward neighborhood. In Canada, the term "elevator row" refers to a row of four or more wood-crib prairie grain elevators. 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. This brought in droves of private grain companies. Towns boasted dozens of elevator companies, which all stood in

2280-541: The invention of the grain elevator, the United States became a major international producer of wheat, corn, and oats. 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. This led to several grain elevators being burned down in Nebraska, allegedly in protest. Today, grain elevators are

2340-488: The later campaigning to organize the wheat pools. The co-operative movement was also being established in Canada at this time. At this time farmers in the Prairie Provinces were deeply alienated from the Canadian political and economic status quo . Farmers accepted as common knowledge that grain companies, railways , banks , and the government were part of a system that sought to exploit and oppress farmers. They developed

2400-592: The marine leg, which scooped loose grain out of the hulls of ships and elevated it to the top of a marine tower. Early grain elevators and bins were often built of framed or cribbed wood, and were prone to fire. In 1899 Frank H. Peavey "The Elevator King' along with Charles F. Haglin , invented the modern grain elevator. The first Peavey-Haglin Experimental Concrete Grain Elevator still stands today in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. The Peavey invented elevator

2460-456: The merger, U.G.G. was a powerful force with 300 elevators and a terminal at the Lakehead. While U.G.G. and Sask. Co-op Elevators were farmer-owned, they did not follow the traditional co-op structure of paying dividends back to the users on a patronage basis (per the amount of business), instead they paid dividends to shareholder-investors. For diehard co-operators this was unacceptable. Furthermore,

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2520-584: 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. Because so many grain elevators have been torn down, Canada has only two surviving elevator rows; one located in Inglis, Manitoba , and the other in Warner, Alberta . The Inglis Grain Elevators National Historic Site has been protected as

2580-417: The name of the community painted on two sides of the elevator in large block letters, with the name of the elevator operator emblazoned on the other two sides. This made identification of the community easier for rail operators (and incidentally, for lost drivers and pilots). The old community name often remained on an elevator long after the town had either disappeared or been amalgamated into another community;

2640-470: The offer. A special meeting of members in April 1926 voted to sell by 366 to 77. The 451 country elevators and three terminals were valued by arbitrators at CAN$ 11 million. The SCEC owners received $ 155.84 per share, a good profit on their CAN$ 7.50 investment. Grain elevator A grain elevator is a facility designed to stockpile or store grain. In the grain trade , the term "grain elevator" also describes

2700-569: The other side, and additional grain-storage annex bins on either side. In more recent times with improved transportation, centralized and much larger elevators serve many farms. Some of them are quite large. Two elevators in Kansas (one in Hutchinson and one in Wichita ) are half a mile long. 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. At

2760-561: The pool funds, and the provincial government provided a CAN$ 45,000 advance. The SCEC was violently opposed to organization of a wheat pool in the province, which it saw as a threat to its existence, but could not stop rapid growth in membership. By 6 June 1924 the pool in Saskatchewan had signed up 46,500 contracts covering more than half the acreage in the province. The pool incorporated as the Saskatchewan Co-Operative Wheat Producers . The three provincial pools formed

2820-406: The remaining four were not hurt. Almost any finely divided organic substance becomes an explosive material when dispersed as an air suspension; hence, a very fine flour is dangerously explosive in air suspension. This poses a significant risk when milling grain to produce flour, so mills go to great lengths to remove sources of sparks. These measures include carefully sifting the grain before it

2880-439: The same time, many larger grain farms have their own grain-handling facilities for storage and loading onto trucks. Elevator operators buy grain from farmers, either for cash or at a contracted price, and then sell futures contracts for the same quantity of grain, usually each day. They profit through the narrowing "basis", that is, the difference between the local cash price, and the futures price, that occurs at certain times of

2940-698: The subjects of the National Film Board of Canada documentaries Grain Elevator and Death of a Skyline . 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. This structure was the largest grain-storage facility in the world when it was built in the 1880s. Wheat pools in Canada A wheat pool

3000-579: The term "grain elevator" is used to refer to a place where farmers sell grain into the global grain distribution system, and/or a place where the grain is moved into rail cars or ocean-going ships for transport. Specifically, several types of grain elevators are defined under Canadian law, in the Canadian Grain Act , section 2. Both necessity and the prospect of making money gave birth to the steam-powered grain elevator in Buffalo, New York , in 1843. Due to

3060-417: The term describes only the lifting mechanism. Before the advent of the grain elevator, grain was usually handled in bags rather than in bulk (large quantities of loose grain). The Dart elevator was a major innovation—it was invented by Joseph Dart , a merchant, and Robert Dunbar , an engineer, in 1842, in Buffalo, New York . Using the steam-powered flour mills of Oliver Evans as their model, they invented

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3120-561: The two companies were unable to negotiate a merger between themselves and were not involved in marketing grain overseas. They lacked the size or reach to challenge the open-market system. During the Great War the Canadian government had completely taken over the grain industry. The government created a series of boards in and around the war, each with progressively more power to control the grain trade. The Board of Grain Commissioners of 1912

3180-528: The war prices would crash and various agrarian groups lobbied Ottawa to keep the Board in place. The government relented by creating the Canadian Wheat Board for the 1919 crop only. Farmers got a guaranteed price for that crop, paid immediately, and later a further payment once the Board had sold all harvest and made a profit. This system of guaranteed prices and distributed income was extremely popular and when

3240-426: The world's first steam-powered "grain storage and transfer warehouse" was executed by an engineer named Robert Dunbar. 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

3300-567: The year. Before economical truck transportation was available, grain elevator operators sometimes used their purchasing power to control prices. This was especially easy, since farmers often had only one elevator within a reasonable distance of their farms. This led some governments to take over the administration of grain elevators. An example of this is the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool . For the same reason, many elevators were purchased by cooperatives . A recent problem with grain elevators

3360-512: Was completed in 1898. It had a capacity of 40,000 tons and its automatic conveying and spouting system could distribute grain into 226 bins. Given a large enough suspension of combustible flour or grain dust in the air, a significant explosion can occur. The 1878 explosion of the Washburn "A" Mill in Minneapolis, Minnesota , killed 18, leveled two nearby mills, damaged many others, and caused

3420-446: Was highly profitable. It paid 8% dividends between 1917 and 1924, and annual bonuses that ranged from CAN$ 0.50 and CAN$ 4.50 a share. However, it did not pay patronage dividends to non-shareholding farmers. Instead it used its profits to pay for expanding its facilities. It was therefore not a true cooperative. The SCEC alienated the poorer farmers. One of them noted, "Inasmuch as most of the pioneer settlers are too poor to hold shares, it

3480-545: Was purely for regulation (to supervise grading, etc.), but by 1915 the government had seized control of all wheat exports to help the war effort, and by 1917 futures trading on the Winnipeg Exchange was banned. In 1917, the new Board of Grain Supervisors was given monopoly powers over wheat, and fixed uniform prices across the country. Soon after the Board took over marketing of crops as well. Farmers were worried that after

3540-541: Was the first cylindrical concrete grain elevator in the world and is now widely used across Canada and the US. Grain elevator bins, tanks, and silos are now usually made of steel or reinforced concrete. 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. When desired, silos, bins, and tanks are emptied by gravity flow, sweep augers , and conveyors. As grain

3600-618: Was the largest operator of grain elevators on the prairies, ahead of the UGG. By the mid 1920s it had more than 400 elevators. The SCEC was closely aligned with the Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Association (SGGA), a farmer's group, and with the Liberal Party of Saskatchewan. Maharg, president of the SCEC was also president of the SGGA, and in 1921 was provincial minister of agriculture in the Liberal government. Charles Avery Dunning ,

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