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How a GRAIN ELEVATOR works 

Herrick Elevator
Herrick, South Dakota
built 1907

On the National Register of Historic Places, this building was the first of three elevators built along the railroad at Herrick, and it is the last to remain standing.  The elevator operated from 1907 to 1997.
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For a schematic drawing of an elevator, click Here

For information of Joseph Dart's first wooden elevator, go Here.

 

Head House-- home to the distributor,
which (you guessed it) distributes the grain.
A big funnel has a moveable hole that is 
aimed into the correct storage bin. Grain 
falls by gravity into its new place of storage.

Hip--roofline that creates transition from 
storage bins to cupola (or head house)

Leg--conveyor belt of cups that brings 
grain from boot to head house

Boot--a cement storage bin below ground.
Trucks dump their grain into a grate
in the floor of the Drive-Through.  It drops
by gravity to the Boot where the cups of a
conveyor belt scoop it up and carry it up
the Leg

Attached Tin Shed--built in 1968 by the
Waterbury Brothers, then owners of the
building

Drive-Through--a lean-to attached to side 
of the elevator.  Wagons (and later, trucks) 
could drive through the structure for shelter
as they loaded or unloaded grain

Scale House-- Office, a warm place from
which to read the scale.  Farmers weighed 
both empty and heavy, so elevator owners
spent a lot of time at the scale