Topeka, KS: Three Cargill Elevators and Some Others

I already had a posting on the largest Cargill elevator.

All three elevators are built along the Union Pacific tracks.

Cade Smith posted
This is the smallest of the three Cargill elevators in North Topeka.
[1,026,000  Satellite]

Cade Smith posted
Cargill North Topeka elevator, one of three.
Jan Normandale almost 16 cars long... almost 3 1/2 football fields long.
[11,988,000  Satellite]

Cade Smith posted
This is the largest of the three Cargill elevators in North Topeka.
[24,636,000 Satellite]

Even the local Fairview Mills is pretty good sized and rail served.

Update: Another comment added to the posting:
Brent A. Harrison According to the UPRR grain elevator directory, there are four listings for Cargill in Topeka. Flour terminal, 1,500,000 bushel capacity, South Flour terminal, 300,000 bushel capacity, West grain elevator, 2,200,000 bushel capacity, and Cargill Inc with a 5,500,000 bushel capacity. Hope this helps.


The original capacity numbers seemed too big. They must be using a unit other than bushels. But Brent's numbers seem too low. Maybe there are a lot of silos that can no longer be used, for whatever reason.

Cade Smith took sunrise pictures of three elevators in a row and of Ag Partners (satellite).

Keiv Spare posted
North Topeka, Kansas. January 2017
[Another view of the "smallest" elevator.]

Keiv Spare posted
Topeka, Kansas. January 2017
[Even though Keiv labeled this as Topeka, it looks like the "middle" elevator that Cade labels as North Topeka. According to Google Map, it is Topeka.]

Jerry Krug commented on the above posting, cropped
Here's the same elevator from June 2016 at a slightly different angle. It's hard to describe how overwhelming the size of this structure is.
[Fairview Mills is in the background.]

Update

Bob Summers posted five photos with the comment:

Topeka, the Capitol, is in northeastern Kansas.  Chalmers & Borton built a warehouse in 1936 for Topeka Flour Mill.  I think it likely their elevator was the old timer in the first picture.  Richard Risley, was this an early ADM facility back in your time with them?  Obviously was still in operation in the mid 1970’s when the Mac bag house would have been placed on top of the head house in order to comply with the new EPA regulations for grain dust emissions.  The C&B records do not mention that they were involved in either of the annexes on this terminal elevator equipped with official certified bulk scales.  The tall head house is the clue for that. Found a listing as 1.7 million bushel Topeka Terminal LLC, part of Ag Partners headquartered in Hiawatha, Kansas. 

The first elevator built in Topeka in 1940 by Chalmers & Borton was a 500,000 bushel terminal for Farmers Union, shown in the next two photos.  A small 150,000 bushel annex was built in 1941 by C&B.  The  larger annex on the west end appears to be a Sampson build, probably added in the 1950’s.  

An all new 10,000,000 bushel hex bin terminal elevator was built for Farmers Union in 1958.  This was about the time several small regional grain marketing cooperatives merged to form Far-Mar-Co., a large regional grain marketing cooperative owned by the local co-ops throughout the region.  Both of these terminal elevators were acquired by Cargill, probably in the 1990’s. 

The last photo in this posting on elevators in Topeka was known as Shawnee Terminal, owned by Fairfield Mills in Seneca Kansas. I have no older history or contractor information on this elevator, but the oversized head house was likely originally for the grain cleaning equipment that an elevator for a flour mill would need.  The capacity per the 2008 KGFA Kansas Grain Elevator Directory was 1,557,000 bushels.  I cannot find it in the 2023 Directory.  My next elevator post will be on another large terminal in Topeka.  All photos taken in June of 2020.

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