A 30,000-bushel wooden elevator at Fairfax in the Municipality of Grassland was built by Paterson Grain in 1920. Balloon annexes were built on two sides of it in the 1950s then they were replaced by a large crib annex and two steel tanks. This photo from October 1999 was taken shortly after the facility was closed. It was demolished the following year along with the former Manitoba Pool elevator (acquired by Paterson in 1981) in the background.
Photo: Mike Lisowski
A 60,000-bushel wooden elevator was constructed between 1951 and 1952 at Jordan siding, in the RM of Roland, by Manitoba Pool, replacing a 40-year-old elevator at the site. A crib annex completed in 1960 increased its capacity to 133,500 bushels. Closed in July 1996, the elevator was sold to the newly founded Delmar Commodities of Winkler. The firm replaced the elevator’s spouts and established a soybean-crushing facility at the site. The adjacent railway line was closed in 2006.
Photo: Bernie Freeman (August 2005)
A 32,000-bushel wooden elevator on a farm in the RM of Portage la Prairie was built at Oakville in 1918 by Ogilvie Flour Mills. An annex was built beside it in 1951, increasing the total capacity to 62,000 bushels. Sold around 1960 to Manitoba Pool, it became known as “Pool B.” Closed in 1975, the elevator was sold and moved to its present site where it was used to store grain for an adjacent hog barn. Its rope-driven leg broke down in the early 1990s. Plans call for it to be deconstructed this fall so the lumber can be reused.
Photo: Gordon Goldsborough (October 2017)
A 30,000-bushel wooden grain elevator, at the Dipple Siding (named for local settlers John and Elizabeth Dipple) on the CN line through the Rural Municipality of Macdonald, was built in 1921 for the Paterson Grain Company. It operated until 1949 when it was closed and later demolished. It has been gone so long that few remember it. In 2001, artist Millie Burch, a granddaughter of the Dipples who grew up near the elevator, painted it from memory as a 75th-birthday gift for her brother Ross Dipple. Now in her 90s, Millie wonders if any readers have photos or memories of this elevator.
Photo: Supplied
The Manitoba Historical Society (MHS) is gathering information about all elevators that ever stood in Manitoba, regardless of their present status. Collaborating with the Manitoba Co-operator it is supplying these images of a grain elevator each week in hopes readers will be able to tell the society more about it, or any other elevator they know of.
MHS Gordon Goldsborough webmaster and Journal editor has developed a website to post your replies to a series of questions about elevators. The MHS is interested in all grain elevators that have served the farm community.
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Your contributions will help gather historical information such as present status of elevators, names of companies, owners and agents, rail lines, year elevators were built — and dates when they were torn down (if applicable).
There is room on the website to post personal recollections and stories related to grain elevators. The MHS presently also has only a partial list of all elevators that have been demolished. You can help by updating that list if you know of one not included on that list.
Your contributions are greatly appreciated and will help the MHS develop a comprehensive, searchable database to preserve the farm community’s collective knowledge of what was once a vast network of grain elevators across Manitoba.
Please contribute to This Old Grain Elevator website here.
You will receive a response, by email or phone call, confirming that your submission was received.
Goldsborough is interested in hearing all sorts of experiences about the elevators — funny, sad, or anything in between. Readers willing to share their stories can leave messages at 204-474-7469.
