The Disappearing Grain Elevator of the Canadian Prairies

I’ve been told by friends that I have “a thing” about old grain elevators.  That’s a fair assessment because I’m VERY fond of them!  I’ve previously written about how these old wooden elevators are quickly disappearing from the prairies, being replaced by large steel monstrosities—functional, but without the small-town charm of the older wooden elevators.

I recall going on road trips with my parents as a boy and looking out the window to see if I could spot the next grain elevator peaking over the trees. It would mean a new town was nearby, as every Canadian prairie town had them, much like ever town now has a Tim Horton’s. They were a beacon to travelers on the flat prairie landscapes.

Grain elevators are highly functional structures, acting as a conduit between the farmers and their markets. Farmers would bring their harvested grain to an elevator by truck, where it was unloaded and stored.  All elevators were built beside train tracks and when a train came along its cars were loaded from the stores in the elevator and taken to ports, like Vancouver or Thunder Bay, where the grain was loaded onto large ships before heading to overseas markets.

One of the prettiest grain elevators I’ve seen was in Alberta, and it has been converted into a museum, this being the Acadia Valley Alberta Wheat Pool elevator shown in the above photos.

Below are some additional examples of classic grain elevators:

The mural shown below was located on the side of a building in Vulcan, Alberta.  It illustrates how many grain elevators were present in the town decades ago — almost a dozen of them. It would be an awesome sight, I think, but sadly none of those elevators remain.

Below is the elevator situation in Vulcan today; as functional as the metal tubs might be, they’re just not the same.

Here are a few more examples of modern prairies grain storage elevators.

I’m hopeful that those few classic grain elevators still remaining will be preserved as historic structures. If not, the prairies will have lost an important part of their history.