The Western Elevator’s old moniker looks over Fort William (the neighborhood). Snow falls over Mount McKay in the background. This elevator is still active… the only active elevator in Fort William proper.
history under ground
ghost-signs
I revisited the mill years after my documentary. Now it is even more destroyed and surrounded by new fences.
This building had no identity issues. My chief regret was not spending more time documenting the ghost signs around the complex.
A century-old ghost sign for Royal House Flour was preserved after a building is built above and through it! Looking from the north annex elevator toward the headhouse.
The Osborn Block (front) and the Twohy (rear) at sunset. In the distance, you can almost make out Globe Elevators. One of my favorite photos of 2013.
‘Consumers Brewery’ set in the brewhouse staircase.
I couldn’t help but include this ghost sign for a demolished motel…
Kurth bears a ghost sign. Recently, its main sign was destroyed by graffiti artists in 2015.
The large domed rooms were surreal.
The beacon was installed in 1938 and removed in the mid-2000s.
Looking at the ghost sign from a rust-locked cement conveyor that linked the silos with a packing warehouse.
Inside the office was a small furnace and a collection of mechanical belts. You can see “SERVICE AT COST” and “POOL 168” in the background.
“Public WHSE” on the side of Osborn.
The overgrown offices serve no one at this former Federal Elevator in Snowflake, MB.
“Five Roses” was the brand of flour that Lake of the Woods marketed. Later, this became another Manitoba Pool elevator. Notice the “POO” up top? It’s missing the ‘L’…
It’s like a piece of paper that’s been written on and rewritten, until you can’t read what the original message was.
The back of the mill reads “Red River Milling Company”
Global Trading remarked the building in the mid-60s, but far above the door is the old ‘Detroit Shipbuilding’ paint, though it’s faint nowadays.
The Peavey logo, before it rusted off and the offices were demolished.
The old movie theatre sign was sitting right inside the sealed front doors.
It’s a mystery to me why this elevator has a Gold Medal Flour ghost sign. You can read it along with its obsolete monikers today.
The old gate sign, leaned against one of the terminal elevators.
Just across the North Dakota border, a rusty Milwaukee Road boxcar sits where it was shoved off the mainline. The grain elevator in the background marks the tracks, which is still used by BNSF.
An old name for an older elevator, as seen from an abandoned rail spur.
The offices for the Five Roses elevator have long been boarded. To the left you can see the Manitoba Pool Elevator slogan, “Service at Cost”, meaning they would not make profit off farmers and dues.
Ghost signs advertising tractors and boilers face a bike trail.
Isabella A (left) and B (right) were built in 1910 and 1913, respectively.
Model: Devan. Instagram: sextmachine
A 24-hour clock that reeks of the 1970s. A ladder stenciled “LTV”–the failed steel company that built this dock. There is more, if you look closer.
I love the ghost sign across these two elevators, originally built as Superior Elevator. It’s looking pretty rough.
A misnomer that stuck.
For some time, Purina ran a feed service out of the elevator. Inside and outside were signs of its past presence.
Looking up at the most conspicuous graffiti in the city on ADM #4.
The Engine House’s boiler, which would have been fired all day all day, virtually from the day the shop opened until the day it closed.
A defunct UGG elevator in Killarney, not far from where the Harrisons (of Holmfield, MB and Harrison Milling) once operated a small elevator. Medium Format.
As photographed from a cement piling for Slip #3 poured in 1935, disconnected from land by erosion. How do I know the date? A pair of steamship engineers carved their initials and ranks into the wet cement!
Off the beaten path is this old LTV sign. Now it points to a ghost town and dead dock.
A view of the Harris offices, complete with great block glass.
A passing cloud almost looks like a puff of smoke from the trimmed smokestack of Consolidated D. In the lower corner you can see a little Stonehenge that someone with a sense of humor and heavy equipment built.
The fantastic red elevator that is Pool #61, built 1928.
The texture of the cracking poured concrete ore pocket is somewhere between stone and driftwood.
Shadows of the trees from the materials yard.
Two ghost signs on top of each other. One is for a warehouse.
From a distance (here, Union Yards), you can still see ARMOUR spelled out on the smokestack in white brick.
General Mills bought Consolidated Elevator’s “D” in 1943 and renamed it “A,” though no additional elevators have followed from that firm to date. Visible on the right is the first annex, built along with the elevator in 1909.
The Brown Hotel still stands, but has recently gone out of business again. One of the nice things about historic buildings in New Mexico, though, is things tend to stay around a lot longer than if they were subjected to lots of rain and snow. It will probably be reopened eventually.
The flour mill (rear) and its elevators. The taller elevator was moved here in 1955, when the Harrisons bought it from Federal, who declared it surplus. The smaller elevator replaced an earlier smaller warehouse in 1926. Taken shortly after dawn. This one picture made the drive worth it, for me. Medium Format.
The Harrison flour mill, completed in 1897 and expanded in 1901 and 1902. The tunnel that I am standing on probably transported grain from the elevator to the mill. Medium Format.
Lost words over the auditorium entrance.
This elevator was built in 1922 and was used until the passing rails were removed in the mid-1970s.
One of Martinsdale’s defunct businesses perpendicular to the depot. Recall that Martinsdale is a T-town.
The sign that greets visitors to the ghost town of Colmor. Nothing says ‘welcome’ like birdshot.
Elevator B, used by a local farmer, stands behind an old farm truck at the edge of town.