IHS Built Environment Typology :
Structures : Buildings :

Grain Elevators :

Self-Contained Type-Family : Square-Bin Supertype :
Vertical Square-Bin Type : Wood Construction Material :

Examples

Images of Wooden Square-Bin Grain Elevators through history and across the continent. (Diagnostics are in a separate webpage.)

Grain Elevators are ubiquitous buildings, yet there is little popular understanding of them and their origins.

The basic arrangement of a grain elevator fits into two different "Type Families" based on whether it is a discrete building ("Self-Contained"), or a semi-dispersed cluster of structures (Annex).

Within those classifications, there are several distinctive types based on grain bin design and arrangment. Construction material and assembly then determine different subtypes or material variants.

An index to this and related typologies spells out the interrelationships concisely (without the clutter of images and descriptive text). Related and similar building and structure types are in a sibling websection.

Ah, "Standard Elevator," my martyr, the one that got me started "collecting" grain elevators.

The elevator itself is bookended by a railroad station in front, and a railroad warehouse in back, both which were soon integrated into the elevator operations. The station (and presumably the warehouse also) was built in 1866 along a spur track at the head of the downtown. I think the elevator was built about 1872.

Too much to show and tell - more here in the Standard Elevator webpage.

"Standard Elevator," Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio, USA - 11 December 1987.

A neighbor down the street from "Standard Elevator," this is the "Standard Ceral" elevator, in 1907 or soon after. It disappeared between the 1930s and 1960.

The below image is a slightly earlier one, from 1903, when the canal still held water.

This is probably a grain elevator, at a somewhat remote location off a street and at the crossing of two railroads near Chillicothe, Ohio. (There is a c1900 photo of it in a period business booklet, but I can't find it yet...)

Though lacking a clear headhouse, this appears to be a massive, long, deep, wooden Vertical Square-Bin grain elevator (and judging by its size, probably a terminal elevator). The line of boxcars (they have doors, so they're not hooper cars) on the adjacent railroad track illustrates the scale.

The more typical-looking grain elevator module at the far, right, end appears to be an integral part of this wooden building. I presume that its bookend-like headhouse serves all of the huge building, though I can't imagine how - though the gabled roof over the bins to the left of the headhouse is huge, and could hide many large conveyors.

The bumps on the roof appear to be dormer windows, apparetly to allow some light into the attic (which is presumably also a headhouse). The vertical lines running down the railside elevation appear to be downspouts, and probably are not reliable for indicating any interior divisions.

A separate, and probably competeing, grain elevator is in the distant right. Its painted sign appears to be longer, and thus different, from this elevator.

"Interior Elevator Company," Minnestota, USA. Photo ca.1900.

All but the tall concrete bin on the left appear to be gone by the end of the 20th century. The bin is separately known as the Peavey-Haglin Experimental Concrete "Grain Elevator" in Minnesota. The elevator leg runing up its right side may connect with the wooden bins, but is probably isolated - this concrete bin was built only to test the concept, and was never used again. Built 1899-1900, it was the first circular concrete elevator in the nation and possibly the world, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It has its own web page (where this image was borrowed from) and an NRHP entry at the Minnesota Historical Society web site.

This is an absolutely charming historical photo of a grain elevator in its original historical habitat - sparse vegetation, piles of wood for industrial applications, wooden board sidewalk, unpaved streets, telegraph lines, woodburning locomotive with 'sunflower' stack, clerestory passenger railcars, freight stacked on train platform. Beautiful. Ahh, and not a single 'infernal combustion'-propelled vehicle in sight... The photographer appears to be on a roof or in a second-floor window. (Here's the entire photograph, with even more activity!)

The tree appears to be 20 to 25 years old, and certainly began growing after the grain elevator was built. With the date of the photo as 1874, this indicates the building dates to about 1850-1855 (rounding off).

The grain elevator has a somewhat large headhouse, but otherwise is a "country" grain elevator. Sited against the railroad fill, it has a partly exposed basement, with a window visiblle on the right bottom. A window to the ground floor appears to peek over the cabin of the locomotive.

The drive shed has a trim hipped roof - and even pierced wooden brackets on the doorway corners! Those Victorians. The wall does not extend all the way down the left side, leabing the bases of the studs exposed. This is wise - if the siding were in contact with the ground, decay would ensue much sooner. A rain-diverting strip appears to be over the right side of the doorway, probably to divert drippage over people entering it on the side. This drive shed certainly did not last long, with the increasing sizes of railroad equipment. It is clearly the predecessor of the drive shed built for truck delivery and hauling in the 20th century. Oddly, the train sitting on the elevator spur is not there to be serviced by it - only passenger cars are visible, and no freight cars.

Lumber braces mounted vertically on the upper part of the elevator body indicate that this is probably of balloon-frame and/or stud-walled construction. These appear to have been mounted in the center of the bins. However, they are spaces unequally, which may indicate unequal bin sizes and/or gap for stairway and access.

The approximately 2.75-story-tall headhouse has two bands of windows. Walkways with railing are on the main and headhouse roof ridges, and the front and back of the headhouse base. They are presumably for fire safety - to visually inspect the shingle roof for embers sent up by the wood-burning locomotive of the time. This researcher has never seen such accoutrements, heard of them, or seen evidence of them; presumably with these this grain elevator was given better protection that the avarage elevator.

Pacific Grain Elevator at St. Paul & Pacific Railway Station on Washington Av. and Third Ave. N. in, Minneapolis.

A now-vanished small-town elevator in south-Central Ohio (near my alma mater high school - go Bearcats!). The asymetrical cupola implies that the rear indentation has been enclosed for additional equipment. There is also a tall lean-to addition on the rear in this view that is not there in the bottom, 1950s photo. I can't quite remember the interior other than the stairway to the top was your typically twisted, steep grain elevator stairway. The top part, into the cupola, was little more than a ladder.

The ugly stubby concrete and corrugated steel thing to its left (north) was a mill. It was probably gutted by fire, and the burned-out first floor and basement were renovated as...something. I'll bet the elevator was built after the mill burned.

The mill's original appearace is preserved in a blurry postcard photo, viewed from the railroad to the north of it about 1900. Apparently, the grain elevator had not yet been built beside it (in this view, behind it). A boxcar is parked next to the mill on a railroad siding. Note the rear lean-to with the tall square boiler furnace smokestack.

Behind the mill (to its left in this view) is the village water tower, and beside that, the village powerhouse that generated electricity, with its circular boiler furnace smokestack. The powerhouse still stands (1/04). In front of the water tower, closer to the camera, is a railroad turntable. It's concrete ring is also still there (at least until a few years ago), even though the railroad was abandoned a decade and a half ago (grumble...). [From the collection of June Gregg, Bainbridge, Ohio]

The grain elevator is visible in this circa 1950s view of the railroad station farther in front (to the west) of the elevator. Note the absence of the mill, but its rear appendage (the rear lean-to with the tall square boiler furnace stack) with exposed inner wall, complete with whitewash, is still there. The railroad station was moved a county away when the line was abandoned. [From the collection of June Gregg, Bainbridge, Ohio]

A great archival image of another, long-vanished, smaller-town elevator in south-Central Ohio (near my alma mater elementary school).

Unusual for a grain elevator, there was never any railroad near this one. It may have been built in speculation that one of the several railroads proposed to run through Paint Valley might actually be built, but they were never more than dreams reported in the local newspapers. "Bourneville Mills" is a lot less prim and tidy, and a lot more scrappier, than the above Minneapolis elevator. This burned and was never rebuilt. Its site has been a gravel parking lot for as long as I have known (about 30 years).

Note the graduated height of the floors. The first floor (or ground floor) is relatively low. The one above it is typical height. The third floor appears to be taller (if the gable window is the same height above floor level as the others). The windows are also shifted in towards the center, probably to light work areas in the center between the grain bins that are probably along the side walls.

The "mill" part appears to be the false-fronted two-story addition on the right. It's clearly an addition - there is no clear seam, but the weatherboarding has been slid partly over onto the elevator's core, creating a ragged seam a few feet to the left of the mill addition's edge. Also, it makes the buiding assymetrical. Behind it is the boiler furnace big smokestack, with three huge gangly guy wires. On the right is an added one-and-a-half story lean-to that appears to be a stabling shed for horses and/or wagon storage, with hay storage above - and added to that, and one-story lean-to for wagon storage. [From the collection of June Gregg, Bainbridge, Ohio]

Bourneville is one of those towns on a two-lane highway that lack a stoplight, and if you blink as you're driving down the road, you'll miss it. (My kind of town to look for derelict but preserved architectural history!)

A nice pair in Cortland, south-central Indiana. I presume one (probably the rear one, with the main roof ridge parallel to the former railroad and now truck lane) is an addition to the facility.

A lovely view of a row of elevators on the Canadian prairie. Though it may not look it, this photo dates to about 1950! The Wood Grain Elevator had a long life, especially in the northern breadbasket.

These are the 4 (or 5, depending on how you count them) elevators that are a restoration project in the town of Inglis, Manitoba, Canada.