Thunder Bay, ON: Port Arthur and Fort William Grain Elevators Overview

(Substreet; see below for satellite)

Port Arthur and Fort William merged to form Thunder Bay in 1970.

The town also used to ship iron ore. And it has a shipyard.

Association for Great Lakes Maritime History posted
The steamer Algoma beside a grain elevator in Fort William, Ont., circa 1884, with two schooners and a steamer in the background (Image Source: University of Wisconsin Madison Libraries Digital Collection – The Great Lakes Maritime History Project). 
The image is part of the University of Wisconsin Madison Libraries - State of Wisconsin Collection. Name of photographer was not included in accompanying notes.
[The description continues with the history of the steamer.]

Port of Thunder Bay posted

Grain shipments continue to be the backbone of the Port of Thunder Bay.

Our terminals can load anywhere between 1,000 and 3,000 tonnes of grain per hour, including wheat, durum, canola, coarse grains, oilseeds, feed grains, peas and other pulse crops.

To learn more about Thunder Bay’s grain elevators and their history, check out our friends over at friendsofgrainelevators.org

Brian R. Wroblewski shared
The "other end" of our grain trade to Buffalo.

"The Canadian Pacific Railway built the first terminal elevator in Thunder Bay in 1883. By 1929, twenty-nine stood along the waterfront, making the Lakehead the world's largest grain port. Today only 18 terminals remain. Of those, 8 still handle grain." [FriendsOfGrainElevators-maps]

I wish I had discovered this grain elevators page before Apr 2023. It would have saved me a lot of research over the years.

A timeline:

CPR built a handful of elevators along the river in Fort William between 1883 and 1902. The forth one, 1897, was built with steel. In 1898, CPR built an elevator in Port Arthur and it was the first "hospital" elevator in Canada. That means, it had a dryer and could salvage grain that would otherwise be lost. CN starts its first elevator in 1901. In 1903, CPR builds the first successful slipform beams. (Previous attempts in the US either cracked or crumbled.) 1904: the first non-railway-owned elevator, the Empire Elevator. 1911: the steel tanks of CPR D were replaced with concrete.

I highlight this even because I thought the hopper car was developed by the Southern Railway in the 1960s.

FriendsOfGrainElevators-timeline

Brendon Baillod posted

 

Transportation Museum of Thunder Bay posted

A picture of the Kaministiquia River during the height of industrial transportation on the river. Picture is possibly taken from the James Street Swing Bridge. 

Picture from the Roger Lelievre Collection

Two of those elevators are still standing.

Street View, May 2012

<ToDo: these notes need to be turned into an overview of the elevators and the elevator specific info is being moved to the more specific notes.>

• Richardson Elevators
• Viterra A and B Elevators
• Agricore United Elevator S

Brendon Baillod posted two images with the comment:

Here's a set of turn-of-the-century Underwood stereoviews that I've had in the collection for some time.  They date from 1900 and show the booming Canadian grain port of Fort William on Lake Superior.  Huge amounts of Manitoba grain flowed from the elevators of Fort William to the lower Lakes during the first half of the 20th century aboard a large fleet of stout Canadian grain carriers, many of which were built in England.  Fort William eventually combined with Port Arthur and joined what is now Thunder Bay Ontario.  

The first card shows two steamers at the grain elevators with a father and two children enjoying the Fall afternoon by the Lake.  The second is an occupational showing a crew loading a wooden steamer from a chute at one of the Fort William elevators.

20th century Underwood views were mass produced and seldom contain historically important or collectible views, but there are notable exceptions such as these.  These cards appear to have been part of a small run and I've not seen them anywhere before.  They give an excellent closeup view of early Fort William and the heyday of the Canadian grain fleet on the Great Lakes.

Brendon Baillod shared

Mark Duskey: Brendon Baillod spent a lot of time early in my career at the four paper mills in the land of the sleeping giant, and learned not to assume someone was from one or the other. The Finns were especially sensitive! 😀. One friend married a Finnish girl from Fort William and he said that he had to build a sauna in his house as part of the pre-nup!

1

2

Andrew Tuttle posted

Port of Thunder Bay posted
So grainy! Did you know the Port of Thunder Bay has the second largest grain storage capacity in North America and the fastest grain ship turnaround time of all western Canadian ports. Ownership of Thunder Bay elevators includes some of the world’s largest agri-businesses.
David Schauer shared
Edward Henry: It’s referring to total capacity of all port facilities. Vancouver just edges our tbay with the newly opened g3 terminal.

Satellite, North is to the left

Barry Westhouse posted
P&H Grain Elevator at Maureen St. Thunder Bay, Ontario. - July 24, 2019

(This photo was supposed to be nearer the top. But a Google bug put it at the bottom of these notes. Instead of wasting my time working around a bug that I reported weeks ago, I leave the photo here as a monument to Google's bug.)
Bill McCabe posted
From my collection. I think we bought it in Port Arthur/Fort William in 1967, but now all Thunder Bay. The building still stands, though I'm not sure it is in actual use.

John S. Rochon posted

ACME news photo of the S.H. ROBBINS and the SOODOC loading grain at Port Arthur in 1944.

The ROBBINS was built as the HENRY W. OLIVER in 1899, was renamed S.H. ROBBINS in 1915 and renamed BURLINGTON in 1948. She was scrapped in 1967.

The SOODOC was built in 1902 as the MOSES TAYLOR and renamed SOODOC in 1926. She was scrapped in 1968.

This photo has been moved to "Thunder Bay, ON: Keefer Terminal, the General Cargo Dock."

This photo has been moved to "Thunder Bay, ON: Agricore United Grain Elevator S."