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Feature Articles
The Millard Sorghum Silo of Nacogdoches by Robert Rand Russell
That old red brick silo, sound and plumb as it was in 1915 due to the Old World craftsmanship of John "Dutch" Heaberlin and the enterprising Jesse Millard, Sr., prevails as a witness of East Texas history and prosperity...

More images of Texas grain elevators will be added as time permits.

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Grain Elevators

Introduction
They usually dwarf everything in town - including the courthouse if they're found in a county seat. They stand shoulder to shoulder with water towers - and they share the same trait of rugged individualism. They face storms with defiance and stoic fatalism.

They're spread from Canada to Texas and all across the Great Plains and into the Midwest. They are almost always located on the railroad and in their native habitant they are spaced about ten miles apart. They are silos on steroids - the evolutionary result of agricultural co-ops and giant farms.

They are so conspicuous in the rural landscape that they are hardly noticed by the locals. The older wooden ones are endangered -and as they disappear one at a time - hardly anyone notices or cares. They are joining icehouses, cotton scales, and drive-in theaters.

Only a privileged few get to see what's inside them - or what isn't. Remember Billie Sol Estes? Besides holding fictitious soybeans, they can also hold the real item - along with sunflower and cotton seed, rice, peanuts, corn and various grains. California might have some that hold pistachios - and we're willing to bet that somewhere - perhaps outside of Houston, there's one that holds those damn Styrofoam "peanuts."

So the next time you pass through a town with a grain elevator look a little closer. Don't try to figure out the maze of catwalks, ladders, hoses, trapdoors and octopus-like tubing - the people who work there haven't figured it out either.

Here's our collection of large buildings that may or may not hold grain.

� John Troesser

Grain Elevators, Silos, Chimneys, Boll Burners, Windmills & Towers

Grain Elevator Images

Grain Elevators

Grain Elevators, Silos, Chimneys,
Boll Burners, Windmills & Towers