The Grain Elevators

There are a few things I think of when someone mentions Buffalo to me.  The over exaggerated amount of snowfall we receive, chicken wings, the ever unimpressive Bills, the hopeful Sabres and the historic Erie Canal and the Grain Elevators.  These grain elevators were invented in the area in the mid 1800's as a way to move grain up to the top stories of the silos where it was stored along the waterfront in downtown Buffalo.  This is also why they are called elevators, because they elevated the grain to the top of the silos where it was stored until it was moved to either ships going west through the Great Lakes or, more often, to barges taking the Erie Canal towards New York.

These elevators became the primary part of the skyline of Buffalo, however, the ones we are used to seeing are only a small number of them.  Originally they were made out of wood, not concrete, but this also proved to be disastrous.  A side product of moving so much grain on a daily basis also brings so safety issues.  The dust created by some of these grains, when in a high enough concentration in the air, becomes very flammable.  So as these buildings were made of wood with such a high concentration of flammable material, many fires ensued on an almost daily basis.  There were so may of these fires that insurance companies would not insure the elevators.  This lead to concrete and brick.  The concrete was much less flammable and could therefore be insured.  I also mention brick because some of the elevators were even enclosed in a brick building.  Below is a good and only example left here in Buffalo:

Unfortunately for this one, it is in great disrepair and the owner is not putting any money into the upkeep of it.  In fact, every year, they put in a request to the city to tear it down and every year their request is denied due to it being a National Historical Site, Hooray National Historical Society!!!

Now, you may ask yourself "how do they work?"  This is a good question,  although they did greatly help in making the business of the waterfront much more efficient, they did not eliminate the need for men.  These men, mainly the Irish, would shovel the grain off of the ships and onto a vertical conveyor belt that had buckets attached to it.  This conveyor would then lift (elevate) the grain to the top of the silos and fill them from there.  Here a couple of pictures depicting the buckets and conveyor:

This tour was also very informative about a couple of things.  For how can you talk about grain elevators and not about the Erie Canal.  Because of the Canal as well as the Great Lakes, Buffalo became a crossroads for a lot of materials.  These two major waterways were the main highway of the United States before the iron horse and the railway began.  With all of this material flowing through the area, there was great need for storage.  These elevators were then invented and became used for a number of different things, mainly different grains but they were also heavily used for concrete.  In fact there is still a concrete manufacturer on the Buffalo River that uses one of the elevators to store dry concrete.  Also located on the river, right where it enters the inner harbor is a General Mills plant.  It is because of plant that I wish you had smell-o-vision through your computer.  When the wind blows right, you can smell the cereals that they are baking in the plant all along the waterfront of the Buffalo River.  It is no joke that the area smells like Cheerio's what a great smell, truly the smell of home to me.