Brookdale, Manitoba
An elevator in Brookdale, in the Municipality of North Cypress-Langford, was built in 1938 and last operated by the United Grain Growers before it closed in June 1978, when the adjacent rail line was removed. The building was sold to a local farmer, who used it into the 1990s. It was demolished around 2013.
Photo: Gordon Goldsborough
Carey Pioneer
Two grain elevators at Carey, in the RM of De Salaberry, were owned by the Pioneer Grain Company, a subsidiary of James Richardson & Sons. Both have been demolished since the 1990s; this 2,620-tonne elevator, painted in the bright-orange hallmark of the firm, came down in October 2014.
Photo: Jean McManus
Oberon
This grain elevator in the village of Oberon, on the CPR Varcoe Subdivision in the Municipality of North Cypress-Langford, was once operated by the Oberon Cooperative Elevator Association as part of the Manitoba Pool Elevators network. It now stands abandoned.
Photo: Gordon Goldsborough (May 2013)
Hoffman
Built in 1945 for landowner Ernest Hoffman as a make-work project for Japanese detainees sent inland from British Columbia during the Second World War, this privately owned grain elevator near Brunkild in the Rural Municipality of Macdonald featured a plaque written in Japanese that gave Hoffman’s initials and the symbol for “prosperity.” Its machinery was dismantled in the 1960s, after which it was used as a granary.
Photo: Gordon Goldsborough (October 2015)
Hathaway
A grain elevator at the former railway siding of Hathway, once on the CPR Boissevain Subdivision in the Municipality of Deloraine-Winchester, was formerly affiliated with Manitoba Pool Elevators. Closed in July 1970, the elevator was later used for private grain storage.
Photo:
In the 1950s, there were over 700 grain elevators in Manitoba. Today, there are fewer than 200. You can help to preserve the legacy of these disappearing “Prairie sentinels.”
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.
