Article Database - Why do Such an Expensive and Time Consuming Inventory?

It serves several purposes. First, it provides a complete record of elevators in the province during 1997, which can be compared to a photo documentation of rural communities in the mid-1970s, which has been donated by Unifarm to the PMA. Second, the inventory was used as the basis from which to trace the date of construction and the company that first owned a given elevator, through records of the Canadian Grain Commission and the Alberta Wheat Pool. Third, the inventory allows for a process of evaluation of historical and architectural assessment. The elevators on the inventory were evaluated and placed on an A, B and C list, according to their significance, with research profiles for structures on the A and B lists. The results were interesting, in that Alberta in 1997 probably had more extant early elevators than the other prairie provinces, with several predating 1910.

The fourth reason to do such an inventory is that it is a major resource for research. Analysis of the inventory, in conjunction with scrutiny of hundreds of archival photographs and initial archival research, has allowed for preliminary identification of differences and varieties of architectural design of elevators, as well as the tracing of the evolution of technological changes that have improved the operation of the elevator since 1900.

The inventory itself is a valuable record, but what of the hundreds of others that had been demolished in the past? Major archival collections only document a fraction of them, and rarely after 1950. In the fall of 1997, the Provincial Museum of Alberta launched a one-year photo search and contest to augment the record. Open to all Albertans, amateur and professional photographers alike, the contest seeks photographs taken, 10, 20 or 50 years ago, as well as new photographs, in the hope of filling the gaps in the archival record. When the contest closed in November 1998, 50 winning photographs formed the basis of a travelling exhibition that, augmented by small artifacts, art works, and other media, opened in June 1999.

The response to date, according to Jane Ross, curator at the PMA, has been overwhelming, as thousands of photographs often with letters have poured in from all over Alberta from Provost, to Gleichen to Winfield. In some cases these have been sizeable individual collections. All of these photographs, along with the thousands of photographs and video footage taken in 1997, will form a remarkable and comprehensive photo documentation of Alberta's grain elevators.

In the meantime, I completed an illustrated 400-page summary report for the PMA. It addresses a range of illustrated themes, including architecture and elevator design from the 1890s-1997, the construction of elevators, site development and the evolution of the complex of buildings and their functions, an overview of the grain companies that operated in Alberta, the elevator agent's job and health and safety issues, the development and regulation of the grain trade, and the transportation and marketing of grain. The farmer and the elevator, the elevator as social centre, and the elevator and cultural identity, and the impact of the loss of elevators, were among the remaining topics.

The PMA is now armed with exhibit themes, resource lists, a substantial artifact collection, including a number of elevator blueprints donated by United Grain Growers and the Alberta Wheat Pool, along with thousands of scanned photographs and extensive site specific information to be compiled in a database. All the potential is there to develop an exciting and significant exhibit on grain elevators in the future, and it must be undertaken in response to the collective public interest shown in this aspect of the province's human history.