Hopefully everyone does not mind me looking more into the history of the elevators in our Botha area. Nothing much is happening over the summer months as everyone is busy, so looking back in history seems like it very interesting and next week we will go into some history of the men that worked in our elevators and their lives.
On Sept. 19, 1927 when the Alberta Wheat Pool was purchased from the Botha Farmers' Elevator Company, Earl Cruickshank was the agent there and started running it on Aug. 8 1966, according to the records. Then following Earl, George Laing became the agent on Sept. 17 1970 and ran it until Feb. 22,1971. Then on Sept. 7,1971, Bill Lewis became agent. From September 1984. R.J Duncan took over and he was the last agent until the government closed a lot of elevators down due to moving and removing the rail road tracks from Botha area.
Some interesting records from the Alberta Wheat pool, were in 1932-33 to 1985-86, a total of 8,476,126 bushels were hauled into these elevators. The lowest years were from 1934-35, when 8,116 bushels were hauled. The highest years were 1985-86, with 611,894 bushels were hauled .
From 1934-35, a lot of changes took place with the new bushel annex, which held 28,000 bushels. In 1953, another 43,000-bushel crib annex was built from the Federal site in 1983. In 1959, the older elevator was demolished and a new 76,500-bushel elevator was built.
Alberta Wheat Pool purchased two elevators from the Federal Grain Company in 1972. They continued operating out of these until March 31, 1975, when it was closed. In March 1983, the elevator was torn down and burned.
In 1928, the newest elevator was opened and Shortie Skocdopole than delivered a load of wheat to Earl Cruickshank.
The elevator from the Federal Grain Company built the last elevator in Botha in 1928. In the late 1940s the former Alberta Pacific elevator was purchased. The first agent to run this was Verne Gruff, followed by Elmer Pate, Morley Groves, Glenn Walker and Harold Hart. In 1972, the Federal Grain Company was sold to the Alberta Wheat Pool. Harold Hart remained the agent here until 1975. The elevator was used as storage for a while and was demolished on March 1983. The annex was held 50,000 bushels was built in 1965.The annex was moved to the Alberta Wheat Pool site in 1983.
Another way used for moving grain in the late 30s and early 40s was farmers loading directly into the cars, bypassing the elevators and subsequent handling charges. Elmer Hustad trucked the grain. Heck Tennant, John Latham, and George Ramsey unloaded the 200 bushel weight onto trucks within minutes. Boxcars at that time held from 1,600 to 2,000 bushels.
Later on until the closing down of grain boxcars from trains, farmers loaded producer cars of 3,000 bushel capacity with trucks that carried 500-600 bushels. This was a interesting comparison of the changes related to grain handling..
Now most elevators are only history, with farmers only holding memories of those days. Lucky for us around here the Stettler elevator was preserved, so if you would like, go there and they will gladly show you through and explain items. Then you can also go on a journey on the Old Steam train and remember them days. Do not let this memory go as elevators were a part of our history, and remember when these were in production and what our pioneers had to do by working there, hauling grain there, time spent unloading and making sure each type of grains went into the right bins. Please do not let this part of history die.