The Concrete Central and Cargill Superior Elevators

The Concrete Central and Cargill Superior Elevators. . , The Concrete Central Elevator , The Concrete Central Elevator is located between the Buffalo River and the track of the former New York Central Railroad. It is the furthest upstream of any elevator along the Buffalo River. The elevator was financed by the Eastern Grain Mill and Elevating Company, and designed and built by Harry Wait, engineer of the Monarch Engineering Company of Buffalo. , The elevator, built in five sections from 1915 to 1917, is a quarter of a mile long. It was the largest transfer elevator in the world upon its completion. Its 268 bins could store 4.5 million bushels of grain. It was the only elevator able to simultaneously unload three lake freighters while loading four canal boats and up to 85 rail cars. , The elevator was sold to the Continental Grain Corporation in 1944, and remained a functioning transfer elevator until 1969. Subsequently, it was used to store surplus grain, and closed in 1973. , The Cargill Superior Elevator , The Superior Elevator, as it was originally known, was built in 1915 by the Monarch Engineering Company for the Husted Milling Company. A.E. Baxter was the supervising engineer. It was built to replace an earlier concrete elevator that was destroyed by an explosion. , During the elevator's construction, the Husted Milling Company became the Superior Elevating Company. The Superior was the first elevator in Buffalo built in the winter, rather than during the more favorable summer building season. , The elevator was expanded in 1919, and again in 1925. Cargill Corporation purchased the elevator in 1939, and used it as a transfer point between Great Lakes shipping and railroad lines to New York. Cargill Corporation continued to use the elevator as a grain storage facility until the 1960s, when the Saint Lawrence Seaway rendered its Buffalo location obsolete. , In 1953, the American Society of Civil Engineers selected the Cargill Superior Elevator as one of seven Western New York Engineering landmarks.