GALLERY - Old Globe Elevator
Our current project involves dismantling a "terminal" grain elevator, one of the largest wooden grain elevators in the country. The contents of many country grain elevators arrived at this terminal on the shore of Lake Superior, where it was loaded onto ships.
When the elevator was completed in 1887, it was the largest grain elevator in the world. Photos obtained from the Thunder Bay Research Collection show the way the building used to look, and one shows a ship being loaded with the grain.
The main building comprises over two million board-feet of white pine, with some white oak and Douglas fir. The building was covered with corrugated sheet metal, protecting both the wood and its grain contents.
The inside of the main building was an architectural wonder. The top floors housed ten enormous antique cast-iron pulley wheels, each weighing 4400 pounds. It also contained three huge grain distributors, each of which fed grain into an "octopus" that directed the grain into separate bins.
Workers who needed to move from one floor to another used well-worn stairs located in multiple places or climbed aboard a beltavator, at some risk to life and limb.
Oak-pegged mortise-and-tenon joints exist throughout the building. And, of course, square nails were used in all the bins walls.
Two enormous buildings were used for storing grain. Each of these annex buildings consists of 78 bins 60 feet high and twelve feet wide. To keep the walls from expanding due to the weight of the grain, each bin is pulled together by 42 more antique wrought iron rods.
Click on any of our photographs for a larger view.
Text links to larger photographs:
Grain elevator at beginning of project
Globe Elevator the way it used to look
Ship loading at Globe Elevator Building No. 1
Grain distributor inside upper floor
Beltavator, a wondrous invention
Grain "octopus" beneath distributor
Interior of upper floor showing pulley wheels
Pulley wheels removed from building
Beams and bin walls
Our crew at work removing conduit
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