In these, grains are mixed and/or ground into livestock feed.
Examples
Images of Feed Mills through history and across the continent
Diagnostics will be in a separate webpage
I'm betting that this is a feed mill. My second guess would be a Center-Drive Combination Corn Crib / Granary, but the core of the building looks too thin to allow a wagon passage between two corncribs of usable size.
This is the cutest little thing! And absurd. It took me a while to figure it out - I thought the elevator headhouse was an elevator (lift) shaft...but to what? A lift that goes down to a deep basement? Up to the roof? But the Landmark ghost sign clued me in. That squareish stovepipe hat must be enclosing an elevator leg and/or grain bins.
It's a snug little building, easily misidentified as just a little commercial building but for its...thingie...
"Wayne Feeds" building, New London, Ohio, USA
This is old, with its Greek Revival trim, but its elevator facility most likely can't predate the railroad: the Greek Revival style runs from about 1830 to 1860, but the grain elevator mechanism was applied in 1842; grain elevators are always along railroads (or canals, but there's none at this location), but almost all railroads in Ohio date after about 1848). This was probably an unspecialized warehouse or a GrainWarehouse (an evolutionary step before the true Grain Elevator) that was apparently converted into a Feed Elevator in the mid-20thC.
I'm guessing that it was a feed mill, and possibly modified from an existing warehouse or barn. With its size, though, it may be better classified as a Combination Feed Mill / Grain Elevator. Unfortunately, I did not investigate the interior, and it's probably long gone by now.
<El-R-S-FeedMill_eg.html >
(Apologies to Bruce Selyem Country Grain Elevator Photographs
for not reqesting permission to use his thunbnails yet...)
©
INTREPID HISTORICAL SERVICES -
Kevin B. Coleman
Chillicothe, Ohio, USA
