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Behind the barge unloader (a Webster for those grain tech nerds out here) that used to extract grain from docked boats. The ladders are fun to climb, even though they get warped and wavy in places. High in the elevator would have been a crane engine that would lift the unloader, packed with a bucket conveyor, while workers would manipulate the direction of the spout with ropes manually. The buckets would rotate, scraping and elevating the grain into the silos above. It’s a rare piece of equipment for the Great Lakes.

End of the paint line. After reading Father Action’s excellent-as-always writeup about his adventures here, I was pretty cautious around big spinning alarms. (See http://www.actionsquad.org/fordII1.html)

2011. Flavored beers are still popular. The flavor concentrates were stored in this bank of fridges.

Fermenters and mixing tanks fill this brewing room. The lighting is all natural, and is partially owed to a crumbling wall letting the sunset blast the interior in almost perfect profile.

A polaroid (FP100c, actually) of the newer grain car dumper.

In the nitrating house.

Lockers for the boiler room workers.

For reasons unknown, this building’s concrete was designed a little thinly. It reminds me of a Chicago, IL building constructed during WWI when concrete and steel were strictly rationed and many buildings went up with insufficient superstructures. I do not have a build date for this one yet.

The Sivertson’s sign seems like from a different time. I’ve never seen it lit, but I bet it’s beautiful.