See "
Salina Journal" for
Tom Dorsey's photo. An electric motor running a conveyor overheated and caused a rubber hose to catch fire. The elevator must practice good dust management, because just a spark can cause an explosion in a grain elevator if it is not kept clean.
Once again, I'm learning that when looking for a grain elevator in Kansas, you can't stop at the first big elevator you find. This is the elevator that had the fire. The industrial spur for this elevator is a remnant of the Missouri Pacific.
The following photos identify it as the Scoular elevator.
Brian Nemechek
posted two photos with the comment: "Scoular elevator of Salina Kansas."
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Below is first elevator I found. The complex north of North Street is probably a mill because it has some large buildings in addition to grain bins. They used to
ship product (flour?) in boxcars.
Once again, we see that Class I railroads do not like to switch industries so Central Kansas Railway has the various remnants in Salina to switch the elevators and other industries. Although it looks like UP does have to do some switching, or at least rearranging of cuts of cars, because they have a rather big yard, and I found two engines parked on a track.
A Google Photo indicates that some of the bins have been demolished.
A streetview catches the demolition in progress.
A Bing satellite view still shows them in the northwest corner.
Bing's satellite image being significantly older is unusual. Typically Bing's satellite image is as current as Google's, and I normally have to go to the birds-eye view to get an older image.
Matthew Vickinovac
posted four photos with the comment: "
3/22/14 taking one down in Salina."
[The operator wasn't afraid to swing the wrecking ball. I was able to find it in the first photo.]
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Note the date of Mar 22, 2014. That would explain why it is already gone in this June 2014 street view.
It is still standing in this May 2013 view.
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| Global Earth Aug 2011 |
Update:
Ken Bryan
posted two photos with the comment: "
The wee-little Cargill elevator at Salina KS."
"The elevator was built from 1953-1956. It has 182 round bins and 92 "inter bins" between the round bins. It has two elevator "head rooms" that take in the grain and feed it into machinery that puts the grain into the storage bins. Cargill's Ag Horizons grain elevator at Salina KS is licensed to handle 32 MILLION bushels of grain a year. "I don't include his photos because they are marked as copyrighted. But they did force me to find a third elevator at Salina.
That is a long fall protector.
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Kent Bankhead posted
Cargill Elevator Salina Kansas 2024 |
They have at least one of their own switchers.
I was looking at street views to see how the conveyors that load the long buildings are fed from the old elevator. I would not be surprised if the long buildings hold more grain than the concrete silos.
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Robert Wagner posted
Cargill Terminal
Bob Summers: This elevator in Salina that Cargill has, and the former DeBruce, now Gavilon elevator in Wichita, and also the large Cargill terminal in Topeka among others were built by the Garvey family in the early ‘50’s to store surplus government grain. The 3rd generation of the Garvey family sold their grain handling facilities some 25 or 30 years ago. |
Bob Summers
posted three photos with the comment:
Count three headhouses! This terminal at Salina Kansas was built in the early '50's by the Garvey family as CGF Grain. The listed capacity of the upright concrete elevator here is 19 million bushels, with an additional 13 million bushels in the flat storage buildings. This was built to help meet the need for CCC surplus grain storage during that era. Cargill purchased this when the next generation of the Garvey family that owned CGF Grain decided to get out of the grain business in the 1980's. The large steel structure above the main headhouse was not original, and would have been added by Cargill to accommodate additional truck receiving pits required after the transit provision in the rail rate tarriffs was discontinued, requiring the inbound grain to be delivered by truck. Notice also the extensive overhead fall protection structures for the rail sidings now required by OSHA for loading of the trainload shipments.
David Larson Now that our country elevator is closed, this is where my family trucks their grain at harvest. Where does this facility rank in terms of total storage among Kansas elevators?
Bob Summers This is probably it. The figures I cited were from the 2008 Kansas Grain & Feed Directory, which should reflect licensed capacity. I do not know if the large covered grain piles we see at various elevators today are licensed capacity. The former CGF, now Cargill , terminal at Topeka, lists about 15 million bushels. Where I was at Garvey in Wichita was the largest "under one headhouse" at just under 20 million in the upright and almost another 20 in the flat storage. All but one of the flat storage buildings at that elevator are now being used for other purposes, and after the explosion some 20 years ago some of the upright has not been re-activated.
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Brian Nemechek
posted four photos with the comment: "The old elevators of Salina Kansas."
[According to the comments, none of these are used anymore.]
Dan Mannel: Even though concrete and standing, they still have structural integrity issues. Probably the biggest reason those didn't keep getting used is the logistics. Having hundreds of trucks bringing grain in and tearing up the city streets and the many train cars and trucks hauling it back out. People of Salina have complained for years about sitting at RR crossings waiting on trains. I know. I used to live there.
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I could not determine where this elevator is in the cluster of abandoned elevators. It is obviously photos 2 and 3 above.
Jeff Wecker
posted four photos with the comment: "Mural on abandoned elevator, downtown Salina Kansas. 1/8/22"
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Bob Summers
posted four photos with the comment: "Salina, the County seat of Saline County Kansas, is the next stop as we continue following the Union Pacific rail road across Kansas. Salina was a major center for the grain handling and processing industry in the hard red winter wheat producing region of the United States. Five communities (Salina, Hutchinson & Wichita in Kansas; Enid in Oklahoma and Ft. Worth in Texas) had important active primary Boards of Trades back in the day. This post is a place holder in this series following the UP. It includes a photo taken in 2019 of an old elevator for a flour mill and pictures taken in August 2024 of recent murals painted on this and another one of these elevators. The many Salina elevators and flour mills are detailed in another grouping."
John McCall: Such a shame all but one are no longer in service.
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