Wednesday, May 6, 2009

The Pioneer Steel



On pages 216-217 of American Colossus, I mention the Pioneer Steel, a pioneering steel-binned grain elevator built in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Designed by the Gillette-Herzog Company and constructed by the Barnett-Record Company in 1901, the Pioneer Steel was owned by the local grain merchant George Frank Piper. In the photograph above, which was taken in 1995 by Jet Lowe of the Historic American Engineering Record, see can see that the elevator possessed a total of 22 freestanding, unenclosed tanks, arrayed in two rows. A conveyor-belt installed in a narrow horizontal gantry was laid on top of the main row of bins. The Pioneer Steel was demolished in 1995.

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