The Cargill Superior Elevator

The Cargill Superior Elevator. The Industrial Heritage Trail. , Image Source: Historic American Engineering Record. Jet Lowe, photographer, 1990. , 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 reat 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.