Woodland Wanderers
AVA-0915
Member Club of the AVA
The Woodland Wanderers, AVA-0915, is a member club of the AVA: America's Walking Club. We host sanctioned noncompetitive walking events in the Rocky Mountain Region and throughout the western United States. Register and sign up for all our events on our Online Event Registration System.
Grain Elevators were invented by Joseph Dart, a merchant, and Robert Dunbar, an engineer, in 1842 and 1843, in Buffalo, New York. Elevators were initially built of wood, with walls constructed of two-inch-thick planks laid flat and spiked together or with lapped boards placed on a balloon frame stabilized by steel tie rods. The wooden sides of these rectangular structures were often covered by corrugated iron. Subsequently, elevators with circular bins were constructed with steel-plate panels or ceramic-tile blocks. Beginning in the 1920s builders such as Chalmers and Borton of Hutchinson, Kansas, used concrete and slip-form technology to construct those elongated (125 feet) and cylindrical elevators.
Grain elevator management consisted of three types: independent, "line," and farmers'. The majority were independents, owned by local individuals or families. The line elevator was one of several owned by a single entity or corporation along one or more rail lines that also operated a terminal elevator. The farmer-owned elevator was professionally managed for the benefit of local wheat producers and was known as "the Co-Op" (cooperative).
By the end of the twentieth century the grain elevator had lost much of its economic significance. But its symbolic importance remained in that it captured the essence of a regional landscape, its history, and its culture.
