The Cargill Pool Elevator is a grain storage facility in Buffalo harbor built in the 1920s and previously named the Saskatchewan Cooperative Elevator. The elevator is the only grain elevator in Buffalo that is located directly adjacent to Lake Erie.

History

Completed in 1925, the grain elevator was constructed by a co-operative of Canadian wheat farmers known as the

Saskatchewan Co-operative Elevator Company The Saskatchewan Co-operative Elevator Company (SCEC) was a farmer-owned enterprise that provided grain storage and handling services to farmers in Saskatchewan, Canada between 1911 and 1926, when its assets were purchased by the Saskatchewan Whea ...

. The cooperative owned the elevator until 1945 but turned over daily operations to Superior Grain Corporation, an offshoot of the Superior Elevator. It was purchased in 1945 by investors who called themselves the "Pool Elevator Company." Pillsbury purchased the elevator facility in January 1952 for $1 million. The

Cargill Cargill, Incorporated, is a Privately held company, privately held American global food corporation based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, Minnetonka, Minnesota, and incorporated in Wilmington, Delaware. Founded in 1865, it is the largest privatel ...

company later purchased the facility in 1964 as a holding facility for grain. Cargill eventually left Buffalo, abandoning the building. Cargill allowed the Pool to stand idle and to become delinquent in property tax payments. Upon default, the city of Buffalo placed the Pool on the auction block. The Pool Elevator, like all other grain elevators in Buffalo, was deeply affected by the 1959 opening of the

St. Lawrence Seaway The St. Lawrence Seaway (french: la Voie Maritime du Saint-Laurent) is a system of locks, canals, and channels in Canada and the United States that permits oceangoing vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes of North Americ ...

. Because the Buffalo elevators could be by-passed outright via the Seaway, fewer customers each year saw value in unloading grain to an elevator and reloading to rail cars bound for eastern ports.

Storage

The Pool Elevator transfer facility offered a total holding capacity of in 135 bins. The mainhouse features a capacity of of grain stored in 33 main cylindrical bins. Two of which are subdivided vertically to provide four quarter bins, twenty interspace bins, and twenty-four outerspace bins. The elevator was built in stages, as evidenced by the different extensions to the bins that make up the current structure. The two lakeside marine legs could siphon off every eight hours. Numerous boxcars were subsequently loaded on a track that could accommodate fifty-two cars at a time. The Pool could load 100 cars per day, each with a capacity. Virtually all receipts and shipments were in bulk, and the elevator handled a wide variety of wheat, oats, barley, and other grains.

Present day

The building is presently owned by South End Marina, and used for general storage. The original marine leg boat unloading towers and railroad tracks have been removed as the building is no longer used for grain storage. The south end marina operated on the property from the mid-1980s until 2011 when it closed after a fire that burned down the boat mechanic shop. The long finger pier that forms the dock that the elevator sits on is used as a base of operations for local

dredging Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing d ...

projects and marine equipment is often tied up there. This dock was also the last port of call for the vessels Aquarama/Marine Star and Lansdowne before both ships were towed away for scrap. The Cargill Pool Elevator, a.k.a. the Old Lakefront Grain Elevator, a.k.a. the Saskatchewan Cooperative Elevator (built by Canadian Farmers Cooperative), along with its property was again put up for auction. The auction date was scheduled for June 5, 2013. A yet unnamed bidder successfully purchased the elevator on the day of the auction for a sum of $475,000.00, confirmed by Cash Realty & Auction.

Gallery

File:Saskatchewan Cooperative Elevator.jpg, HAER photo File:The Saskatchewan Cooperative Elevator.jpg, Close-up view File:S.S. Aquarama (cropped).jpg, SS Aquarama docked at the elevator

References

External links