Tag Archives: Chalmer’s Mills

Grain Elevators

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December 9, 2023

Grain elevators are used to store grain between when it is harvested and when it is sent to the point of use. They have been around in North America since 1842 when they were developed to store grain being transported via the Erie Canal. Some elevators are very large and communal in their function while some are also used for milling or personal applications on farms. In this post we share pictures we have taken of some of them in Ontario and Manitoba.

Elevators were made with a sturdy wooden crib built of 2 by 8 boards that then had 2 by 6 inch ones stacked up to form the walls and internal bins. The outside would be covered with a wooden veneer which was originally painted red if along a CPR line. Wheat can weigh up to 60 pounds per bushel which means that a 25,000 bushel elevator could have 1.5 million pounds (680,000 kgs) of weight in it. This puts a lot of lateral pressure on the walls. Eventually, elevators that would hold 60,000 bushels were constructed. All elevators, regardless of size, had three basic elements. The elevator, the driveway and the office/engine room. A truck or wagon of grain would be driven onto a scale and weighed and the grain sampled to see what quality it was. It would then be dumped through the floor into the pit where it would be taken up the leg and poured into the correct storage bin. The empty truck would then be weighed again and the amount of grain deposited would be calculated from the weight difference. When it was time to load a train the appropriate grain would be pumped into the back hopper and then down a spout into the waiting boxcar. The illustration below was taken from The Canadian Encyclopedia and shows the inner workings of a grain elevator.

The first grain elevator on the Canadian prairies was developed in Niverville, Manitoba in 1879 and was basically a grain silo. The more traditional shape started to appear in 1881 in the form of 25,000 bushel elevators. The CPR began to offer free land along their rail lines to allow the construction of standard size elevators. While on a recent business trip to Manitoba I was able to photograph the two grain elevators that appear next in this article.

The United Grain Growers had built a grain elevator in Elie, Manitoba in 1928 which has since been demolished. A larger grain elevator was built just west of town in 1986 with a capacity of 3,750 tons. In 1998 the Manitoba Pool and Alberta Pool merged creating Agricore. The elevator was then closed in 2002 but has since been bought by some local farmers who continue to use it. Unlike the majority of elevators, this one has no direct rail access.

A little west of Elie is the town of Oakville, Manitoba. When their 1928 Pool B elevator burned down in December 1973 it was replaced with the present wooden structure. This building was completed between 1974 and 1975 and had a capacity of 162,000 bushels. It was expanded in 1990 by adding the three steel tanks on the west end that brought the capacity up to 204,000 bushels. When the merger happened in 1998 its days were numbered. It was closed in January 2001 as a temporary cost cutting measure by Agricore and permanently closed in November 2001. Like the elevator in Elie, it is now operated for private grain storage. It can be found at this map link.

The CPR built a line through Pontypool, Ontario in the 1880s which opened up the Toronto market to local farmers. In 1894 a grain elevator was built and before long there were two elevators serving the community of about 600 residents. Both of these were gone by 1918 and a new one was constructed for the local farmers to store their barley, oats and wheat before shipping it to market. As transportation systems improved the elevator became less important and by the 1970s it was closed. It can be found at this map link.

The Canada Malting Company located a set of concrete silos at the foot of Bathurst Street in 1928.  Storage silos had disappeared from the city because they were made of wood and had a lifespan of about ten years due to the fact that they were severe fire hazards.  The Canada Malting Company used concrete silos to store barley in before it was turned into malt.  The original silos near the lake were 120 feet tall and more storage was added in 1944 in the form of 150-foot tall silos. These grain silos can be found at this map link.

There are two grain elevators in the town of Schomberg, Ontario.  In 1884 Anderson Tegart built the Schomberg Feed Mill on Main Street where it had direct access to the railway.  It operated until 1927 before it shut down.  Since that time it has housed a variety of businesses including The Scruffy Duck Restaurant which is still in business. This elevator can be found at this map link.

An orange grain elevator stands on the side of Highway 9 close to Highway 27 that used to have the Shur-Gain symbol on the side.  Shur-Gain was introduced in 1937 as a brand name by Canada Packers.  They provided feed for animals and livestock.  Today there appears to be renovations going on at the old feed mill. This elevator can be found at the following map link.

I have driven through Consecon in Prince Edward Ontario several times on recent business trips and kept looking at the old grain elevator that stands beside the Millennium Trail on the old Price Edward County Railway. Yesterday I stopped to take pictures of the structure. The Consecon grist mill was built in 1808 and spurred development of the community. After several rebuilds it was purchased by Richard Baldwin in 1949. He built the grain storage building beside the tracks the same year. When rail service ended through town in 1985 the building was abandoned. It can be found at this map link.

Nashville, Ontario grew as a railway town centered on the railway station.  Soon a saw mill and a grain elevator stood near the railway.  Milling grain creates a lot of dust which becomes a fire hazard.  Many grist mills and grain elevators were destroyed by fire and this was the fate of the original grain elevator in Nashville.  The first elevator burned on July 15, 1919 while a second one was destroyed in 1927. A new grain elevator was built in Nashville in 1930 and still stands beside the tracks. We featured it in our post on Abandoned Kirby Road and it can be found at this map link.

A grain elevator still exists within the city of Toronto on Dawes Road. When it comes to research on the internet it is easy to find conflicting information.  Construction dates range to as early as the 1850s with 1890 also being a prominent date.  The city’s land use maps suggest 1906.  The land developers have to present a historic context in their proposals and they also claim it to be a 1906 wooden crib grain elevator and feed mill.  The use of construction materials would suggest that the 1906 date is correct as the first-floor cement would not have come into popular use until after 1900. This elevator can be found at the following map link.

At one time almost every farm in Ontario had a silo beside the barn. Many of the barns have vanished but the concrete silos still dot the rural landscape. These were essentially private grain elevators that were used to store grain for feeding livestock.

Grain elevators come in many different shapes and sizes but they are slowing disappearing from the landscape.

Related stories: Pontypool Grain Elevator, Ireland Park with Bathurst Street Grain Elevator, Schomberg, Chalmer’s Milling Company, Abandoned Kirby Road

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Sixteen Hollow – Ghost Towns of the GTA

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Saturday Sept. 12, 2015

The area known as Sixteen Hollow was home to an industrial community that became a ghost town by the 1880’s.  We decided to ignore the light rain that was falling, don a light jacket for the first time in months, and go to check it out. There is free parking in the parking lot under the Sixteen Mile bridge on Dundas Street.

Dundas Street was surveyed in 1795, two years after the founding of York (Toronto), as a link to Hamilton.  The road was opened in 1806 after the Mississauga Purchase transferred the land to the British.  George Chalmers arrived in 1825 and opened a merchant shop where Dundas Street met Sixteen Mile Creek.  Next, he built a dam on the creek north of Dundas and opened both a saw and grist mill.  Sixteen Hollow was known for awhile as Chalmer’s Mills and was a thriving community with a tavern, stables, a distillery, a blacksmith shop several houses and an ashery.  In the early 1840’s Chalmers over-extended himself and became bankrupt.  He ended up selling everything to John Proudfoot and the community briefly became Proudfoot’s Hollow. The town continued to grow and a three story inn catered to stagecoach and weary traveler alike. Tailors and weavers as well as the makers of barrels, wagons and footwear all called The Hollow home. When the railroad bypassed the town, and Oakville grew, Sixteen Hollow suffered a fatal blow in the collapse of the grain market.  By the 1880’s the mill was closed and only two houses and the church remained.  The map below from the National Archives is dated 1847 with a question mark but show’s the community early in the days of John Proudfoot.

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North of the bridge, in the area that was once covered by mill pond, we observed a female cross orbweaver spider.  This large specimen was riding out the rain curled up in a plant stem.  This species of spider is known to be mildly venomous with bite reactions lasting from 2 days to three weeks.  It takes it’s name from the cross shaped markings on the body near the head.

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The first reliable bridge to replace the mill dam crossing was built in 1885 and was a steel truss bridge. It was replaced in 1921 with a concrete bridge that rose in elevation as it went westward eliminating the need for the switchback on the ravine side.  A four lane bridge was built in 1960 which replaced it.  The bridge decking was removed from the 1921 bridge but the piers were left standing.  Notice in the picture below, and the cover photo, the metal capped point of concrete on the front side of the pier.  This was on the upstream side and used to break up ice during the spring thaw to protect the bridge from damage.  It indicates that the creek flowed around this pier in the 1920’s.  Today the creek runs well to the east of here, just above the goldenrod field, and is visible in the cover photo.  in 2008 another four lane bridge was added running along the line of the 1921 bridge piers.

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The historical county atlas shows the grand detour that Dundas Street took as it passed through Sixteen Hollow and crossed the creek.  The road passes across the middle of the map from the right to the left as one travels westward.  Just before the mill pond the road takes a curve and descends the hill behind the Presbyterian church (still a wood frame structure in 1877).  It crosses on or near the dam and then does a long hairpin curve south and back as it climbs the west ravine.  By 1877 there are few buildings shown on the map and only one mill, near the church.

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Fall was in the air and there are trees that are starting to change colour.  The process of changing colour actually starts in the spring.  The tree has a relatively short growing season which usually ends in about June.  At this time they already have the bud for next year’s leaf ready but dormant until the spring thaw.  Chlorophyll in the leaves is constantly being broken down by sunlight and replaced.  As the day light hours grow shorter and the nights longer the tree prepares for winter.  It starts to form a kind of scab between the leaf and the branch which cuts off the transfer of nutrients to the leaf.  When the green chlorophyll is no longer replaced the yellow, red and orange pigments in the leaves are exposed.  They too break down in UV light and eventually only the brown tannins are left as pigments.

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Yellow and purple flowers paint a picture of late summer.  Black-eyed susan, also known as brown-eyed susan, are related to the sunflower and provide the yellow on the left below. New England asters like a lot of sunshine and their purple flowers colour the open areas throughout The Hollow. The yellow goldenrod plants on the right are also a member of the aster family and they are often mixed with their distant cousins.  The sumac trees in the background have not started their change to bright red yet.  This is one of the first and brightest transformations of the fall.  The word sumac comes from the ancient word used for red in several languages.

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Sixteen Hollow is a quiet place today but it’s past history was much different.  Humans put a dam across the river and built an industrial community which has now vanished.  The Sixteen Mile Creek is also much shallower today than when Upper Canada was settled.  Clearing of the land led to lower water levels in Ontario.  Water levels at the end of the last ice age were much greater as can be seen in the depth of the creek bed relative to the shale embankments along the sides.

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One of the central meeting places in an early community was the church.  Sixteen Hollow had a Presbyterian church on the east bank of the river by 1844 and it is the only remaining building from the historical village.  This frame structure was 40 feet long, 30 wide and 18 tall.  The building was expanded  in 1899 and given a brick veneer on the outside.  Electric lights were installed in 1943 in time for the centennial celebrations the following year.  The basement was added in 1994 for it’s 150th anniversary.

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Sixteen Hollow is no longer a thriving town but there is a lot of space to hike along the Sixteen Mile Creek.  We had previously looked at a small section going north from here on Canada Day.

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