Something I did yesterday morning.
Something I did yesterday morning. Buffalo, NY has the largest remaining complex of grain elevators in the world. It is also where the modern grain elevator was invented. Parts of it are still working, like the General Mills plant where they make Gold Medal flour and cereals like Cheerios. It's known as "Elevator Alley" or "Silo City".
I'm not sure, but I think Silo City specifically refers to a section that a businessman bought in the early 2000s with the original intention of making ethanol from corn, but that didn't work out, so he's worked with lots of groups to find ways to repurpose what isn't being used for grain. They do guided tours (1 1/2-2 hours) of his roughly 6 acre patch and the buildings on it.
There was all sorts of fascinating history, like the saloon boss system that dominated the jobs on the waterfront and its connections into the modern era of newspapers and politics; how basically all the grain grown in the upper midwest went through Buffalo until the Welland Canal and especially the St. Lawrence Seaway made it unnecessary to stop in Buffalo; how they could pour a concrete elevator in 10 days with the innovation of continuous pouring, and how it made a big difference because grain and flour are highly combustible, and there were lots of fires with wooden silos. Lots of info. It was pretty cool, if you like that historical stuff.
I took pictures.
I'm not sure, but I think Silo City specifically refers to a section that a businessman bought in the early 2000s with the original intention of making ethanol from corn, but that didn't work out, so he's worked with lots of groups to find ways to repurpose what isn't being used for grain. They do guided tours (1 1/2-2 hours) of his roughly 6 acre patch and the buildings on it.
There was all sorts of fascinating history, like the saloon boss system that dominated the jobs on the waterfront and its connections into the modern era of newspapers and politics; how basically all the grain grown in the upper midwest went through Buffalo until the Welland Canal and especially the St. Lawrence Seaway made it unnecessary to stop in Buffalo; how they could pour a concrete elevator in 10 days with the innovation of continuous pouring, and how it made a big difference because grain and flour are highly combustible, and there were lots of fires with wooden silos. Lots of info. It was pretty cool, if you like that historical stuff.
I took pictures.
So if they're not using these things much any more, how do they warehouse grain?
ReplyDeleteThere are grain elevators all over the world that are still in use. This was the largest complex of them in the world, well, I guess it might still be for sheer numbers and size, but much of this particular site is not used because the volume of grain that goes through here is significantly lower than once upon a time. There is also less flour milling and I think no malting of grain done here anymore.
ReplyDeleteADM, unnamed venture capital, and General Mills all still operate here, but Cargill and many other large groups and corporations no longer do. They use other elevators and just ship stuff through the Great Lakes, and up the St. Lawrence Seaway.
So they've essentially decentralized, huh. You don't hear that very often any more.
ReplyDeleteI gather from some of the history information that it was literally the case for quite a while, maybe the mid 1800's through the 1920/30's, and then during WWII, that the US fed the world. That grain came from the central/north central US and apparently almost entirely eventually went through Buffalo for storage and/or processing before it headed overseas. The alternative, if it couldn't reach Buffalo, was to send it down the Mississippi through New Orleans.
ReplyDeleteSome foresighted politicians and others very deliberately positioned Buffalo during the first half of the 1800's to be the port on the Great Lakes that all of this went through. Back when there wasn't anyplace set up to handle this, they made sure they were.
Unfortunately for Buffalo, they didn't have enough foresight to figure out what to do when nobody had to stop here, anymore.
Oh, and they also mentioned that there was concern at some point about hegemonic control of grain storing, processing, and shipping. So I think some things were done on purpose to try to break that.
Doesn't change the fact that ADM, Cargill, and a very small number of other giant international corporations still ended up controlling and influencing everything everywhere in food and agriculture.