Buffalo’s Great Northern Elevator—Beginnings
By Douglas W. DeCroix
With the Great Northern elevator still attracting well-deserved attention, there may be value in sharing some of the events surrounding its beginnings, along with elements of its construction that made it a marvel at the time, while continuing to give it significance today.
The transmission of electrical power from Niagara Falls in the mid-1890s, through the efforts of Tesla, Edison, Adams and others, not only dazzled the population with powered lights and transportation, it made itself felt in more tangential ways as well. One of these involved Buffalo’s grain elevators. Since Joseph Dart erected the city’s first modern elevator in 1843, the number and capacity of these monoliths had grown exponentially as Buffalo became one of the largest grain centers in the nation. An ever-present issue that accompanied this growth was maintaining sufficient speed of transfer to efficiently offload the number of ships coming into the city. Another issue was the threat of fire, as these early structures were largely made of wood.
Electricity promised the ability to move the grain faster than the steam engines fired by coal or wood, but it also set companies searching for materials that would render the elevators more fireproof. This would not only protect their precious contents, it would also hopefully result in lower insurance premiums and more favorable terms on bank loans. The grain centers of the Great Lakes didn’t have far to look for inspiration. New buildings—called “skyscrapers”—were being built in cities like Chicago, New York—and even Buffalo. Central to the success of such projects was a support “skeleton” made of Bessemer steel.
Could steel be used in the construction of a new kind of grain elevator? The idea was not a new one. Experiments had been conducted as early as the 1860s, but the cost of designing and constructing a grain storage facility with cylindrical steel storage tanks was largely considered cost-prohibitive, due to the materials and the expertise needed to successfully address other issues such as grain temperatures and pressures. A firm would need a great deal of money to successfully pull off such a project.
This illustration from Scientific American shows elements of the Great Northern elevator’s construction, including the cylindrical steel bins, girder support structure, brick curtain wall and 4-story clerestory on top.
Credit: From Seicntific American, December 25, 1897
Enter James J. Hill of the Great Northern Railroad. Railroads had long been users of iron and steel for both rails and locomotive construction, and such companies were the most likely to have the capital and/or credit to undertake a project of such magnitude. As it happened, in the mid-1890s, Hill was looking to expand his railroad’s influence in the grain trade toward the East, and thus planned to build grain elevators at the western end of the lakes, in Wisconsin and Minnesota, as well as at the eastern hub of the Great Lakes grain trade—Buffalo.
Buffalo’s Great Northern elevator was not only a marvel of modern construction, it took a mere seven months to complete. Building permits were granted in February 1897 and it began operation that September. Located on Ganson Street along the city’s ship canal, in December 1897 it provided the cover story for an issue of Scientific American, which reported that “an entirely new departure has been taken in substituting steel for wood in the construction of the bins and in driving all the machinery by electrical power.” It was the first electrically powered elevator in the world.
Hill’s company assigned a dream team of elevator engineer D. A. Robinson and bridge architect Max Toltz to design and execute the construction of this revolutionary structure. Their design called for a series of 30 cylindrical bins, 38 feet in diameter and constructed of steel plates, resting on steel girders above a concrete floor. Above the bins was a headhouse and conveyor system that was supported by another set of steel girders. Since the use of cylindrical bins would result in a great waste of space inside the structure, a series of smaller bins was placed in the space between the larger ones, as well as outside, giving the Great Northern elevator a capacity of about 3,000,000 bushels. Surrounding these bins was box-like curtain wall made of brick the height of a 10-story building, giving the structure a look similar to the older wooden elevators. Above the brick was a 4-story clerestory made of corrugated steel with large windows. The entire structure covered an area 400 feet long and 120 feet wide.
One might assume that the surrounding curtain wall supported the internal structures, but in fact the opposite was true. It was the steel girder system that provided the building’s structural integrity—and which actually supported this external wall. The masonry acted primarily as a weather shield and as a way to further stabilize the temperature of the grain during the warm and cold months.
On the water side, grain was transferred from arriving vessels through the use of three steel marine towers, each with a marine leg, capable of transferring 20,000 tons of grain per hour. The marine towers, as well as the internal conveyors and other moving apparatus, were powered by a series of electric motors, which varied in size from 20 to 100 horsepower.
Top floor of the clerestory, showing corrugated skin and several of the elevator’s electric motors.
Credit: Jet Lowe photograph, 1990. Library of Congress
“There is no wood or other inflammable material in the building or used in its construction,” reported the article in Scientific American, “excepting the roller top desk of the elevator superintendent, and this is located in his office, which is nothing more nor less than a brick vault with a brick and steel ceiling.” Such materials rendered the new elevator “absolutely proof against fire,” the article continued, adding that “the protecting of grain stored therein by insurance is almost a sentimental safeguard.”
Contemporary accounts referred to Buffalo’s Great Northern elevator as “undoubtedly the greatest structure of its kind in the world,” placing it “among the most important engineering works of modern times.” More recently, at least one historian has listed it among Buffalo’s ten most historic places. Revolutionary for its time, it remains the last of the “brick box” elevators still standing in North America—for now.
The Great Northern elevator at work in the busy Buffalo port, ca. 1905. Note the three marine towers on the water side, that moved back and forth on a system of rails, to more efficiently offload grain cargoes.
Credit: Library of Congress
