The Electric Elevator Annex

The Electric Elevator Annex. The Industrial Heritage Trail. , Image Source: Historic American Engineering Record. Jet Lowe, photographer, 1994. , The oringinal Electric Elevator, built in 1897, was one of the first elevators to use electricity as a power source. The original construction consisted of nineteen freestanding cylindrical steel bins capable of holding nearly two million bushels of grain. , In 1938, the Cargill Corporation bought the elevator from the Great Eastern Corporation. In 1940, with demand for grain storage high, the six million bushel concrete elevator annex was constructed. From outside, the annex resembles conventional cylindrical bins. However, the interior is divided into just six interior storage halls separated by a central row of fifteen cylindrical bins. The grain was piled inside and moved by power shovels into tunnels below. This design was a radical departure from conventional storage practice, and provided storage at a cost of only eight cents per barrel, less than half the cost of a conventional elevator. , Cargill continued to use the elevator for the next two decades, eventually closing it in 1968. The original steel bins were demolished in 1984, leaving only the annex.