The First Grain Elevator / Early Grain Elevators

In the years after the Erie Canal opened, Buffalo's harbor grew congested as ships waited to unload grain by hand, a slow process that could handle at most 2,000 bushels a day in fair weather and could take days to empty a vessel. In the fall of 1842, Buffalo entrepreneur Joseph Dart and engineer Robert Dunbar built the world's first steam-powered grain elevator and storage warehouse on the Buffalo River at the junction of the Evans Ship Canal. Its wooden structure contained storage bins, and a steam-driven belt with attached buckets, called a marine leg, was lowered into a ship's hold to scoop up grain, raise it into the structure, and deposit it into tall bins, giving rise to the term elevator. The grain could then be lowered later for transshipment or milling. Dart's first elevator could handle over 1,000 bushels per hour, and in 1843 the first bulk grain shipment to reach it was unloaded in only hours. Ships soon could arrive, unload, and depart the same day, something previously unheard of, and the elevator handled over 229,000 bushels in its first year. The innovation spread quickly, and in less than fifteen years ten grain elevators operated near Buffalo Harbor with a combined storage capacity of more than a million and a half bushels. By the end of the Civil War, Buffalo had become the world's largest grain port. Early elevators were wooden, quick and inexpensive to build, resembled huge sheds or barns, stood in or near the water, and served lake and canal boats. They kept grain dry, cool, and protected from pests, while also allowing grain to be weighed and sampled for purity and contaminants. Their chief weakness was fire: wooden construction, overheated grain, grain dust explosions, sparks and hot cinders from nearby locomotives, and the boilers used to generate steam all created serious hazards. In the 1890s, engineers began seriously exploring fireproof materials for grain elevator construction.

Buffalo, New York · United States