Article Database - What About the Physical Preservation of Elevators?

This heritage issue is fraught with problems. The grain companies are wary of future potential commercial use of discarded elevators. They are not keen on dealing with preservation issues that drag on for extended periods of time. Once an elevator has been closed, the bottom line is their main concern. As long as the elevator remains standing, the grain companies argue, they are forced to pay taxes to the town, village or municipality, as well as lease payments to the railway companies. The grain companies point to insurance costs and concerns, as well as the issue of public liability, in explaining their reluctance to involve themselves with preservation interests. For the most part, the grain companies do not even encourage salvage operations, citing unfulfilled contracts to dismantle and injury and accident as major deterrents.

On the other hand, the Grain Academy in Calgary, the only museum in Alberta dedicated to the story of the grain elevator, is sponsored by the Alberta Wheat Pool. The four major grain companies in Alberta-1-all facilitated the documentation, research and artifact salvage undertaken for the PMA. Co-operation between the heritage/museum community and the grain companies must be carefully cultivated.

There is still plenty of opportunity for museums to collect artifacts, undertake oral histories, and garner local information. There are numbers of privately owned elevators on farm sites which could not be tackled as part of the 1997 inventory and which should be documented. Interested parties who may know some of these can contact Dorothy Field, Historic Sites Service, at , for the appropriate forms and information. Other documentation such as the recording of the position of even recently demolished elevators on the sidings in their communities, could be profitably undertaken. Several museums other than the PMA, the Breton & District Museum and the Bonnyville & District Museum for example, have already begun gathering artifacts pertaining to elevators. The overall picture, however, given the significance of the grain industry in Alberta, leaves much to be desired.

Judy Larmour is a historical researcher and museum consultant who lives on a grain farm near Rimbey. Her latest project is co-authoring a book of interesting driving routes or "auto adventures" in search of history and nature and other "neat stuff" in central Alberta.

Several elevators built by the Alberta Pacific Elevator Co. are among the earliest remaining in Alberta, with an excellent example built in High River in 1906, and now owned by Parrish and Heimbecker Ltd. Important examples of elevators built by co-operatives in opposition to the line companies were also found at several points. The Champion Farmers Grain and Supply Co.'s elevator built in 1912, characterized by white metal siding and its pyramidal roof with roofed cupola, still serves as a twin to the 1952 United Grain Growers elevator. At Foremost a pyramidal roofed elevator constructed in 1913 by the newly founded Alberta Co-operative Elevator Co. was recorded.