Grainnet

Written by Barb Selyem. Photos by Bruce Selyem

There is an old, red, wood-sided grain elevator at Accola, MT, where Dry Creek Road meets Biggs-Haugland Road north of Belgrade, MT.

The elevator is idled now, but between 1914, when it was built, and 1978, when rail service stopped, it shipped wheat, mostly a variety called “Turkey Red,” by boxcar to flour mills in the Gallatin Valley.

The Montana Elevator Co. built the 19,200-bushel crib elevator next to the Gallatin Valley Railroad that had just been completed from Belgrade to Menard, MT.

It was part of a network of elevators the company needed to provide wheat for its sister company Montana Flour Mills Inc.

In 1919, the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railway purchased the Gallatin Valley Railroad, and Montana Flour MillsInc. bought the Story Mill in Bozeman, MT.

For 50 years, the Milwaukee delivered wheat to the mill on the “Turkey Red Special.”

Into Private Hands
Ray Haugland, an area farmer, bought the Accola elevator in the late 1960s, about the same time as Montana Flour Mills sold out to Nebraska Consolidated (ConAgra).

He still shipped wheat by rail, but the old elevator was beginning to show its age.

“I don’t have any particularly pleasant memories,” says Haugland, “but the elevator did have its challenges. Loading grain into boxcars could be difficult, as many of the cars were all beat up. I not only had to cooper the cars, but I also patched holes where the grain might leak out.

“The bucket elevator was another problem. It had a chain with buckets rather than a belt. Once in a while, one of the links would break, and the whole chain assembly would fall. I could wrestle it back up using ropes, but that was not an easy thing to do.”

After a pause to reflect, Haugland continues, “The elevator was never electrified. It still had its original Fairbanks Morse engine. Eventually, I took it out and ran the line shaft with a belt from my tractor motor. I had hoped to refurbish that old engine some day, perhaps just to use it for fun in parades, but I never got around to it.”

In 1983, Haugland sold the elevator to Ralph & Prudence Biggs, who owned all the property that surrounded it. (Haugland had bought the elevator property from the railroad in 1978.)

Biggs Ranch used it for storage for only three or four years, and the elevator has been idled since.

No Plans to Tear Down
Calvin Biggs, one of Ralph’s sons, remembers hauling grain there with his dad.

“The managers were all nice people, and a couple of them were real characters,” he says.

“But Dad said, when the elevator first opened, farmers didn’t trust the people who owned it or those who worked there, and they wanted their money right away.

“Farmers would go to the elevator to weigh their wagons but load their 100-lb. sacks of wheat into the boxcars themselves.”

For now, the Biggs Ranch has no plan to use the old wood house.

“I tried to fix it up some a few years ago, but vandals broke in and even stole the scales,” Calvin says. “I replaced some tin on the roof and have noticed lately that I better do that again.

“Tear it down? We’ve never thought about that. It’s a landmark.”

Barbara and Bruce Selyem are directors of the Country Grain Elevator Historical Society. For more information, contact the society at 406-388-9282; e-mail: bselyem@country-grain-elevator-historical-society.org.

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