Grain Elevators of Arrowwood Alberta (x2)

Let’s explore the grain elevator row in Arrowwood Alberta across time. First we’ll look at it many decades back, and with all but one of these iconic buildings now gone, we’ll present a more recent view. The change has been dramatic and a touch sad too. Once they’re history a prairie town seems to lose its very soul and identity.

Arrowwood goes back to the mid-1920s and sprang to life with with the coming of a Canadian Pacific Railway. It’s a community rather late-on-the-scene and this a reminder how young most of the province is. It’s a sleepy little burg located southeast of Calgary and with a population of around two hundred. Agriculture drives the local economy, although the oil and gas industry also provides employment. Many folks here are retired.

This comparison piece is a bit different and incorporates two views of the same subject, taken from two different angles, with photos coming from two different sources. One is our own shot from 1997 and the other a year newer that came from a reader. A big thanks and shout out to Tom Dudones for supplying that one.

Other than the date, no other background information accompanied Tom’s image but it’s not a big deal. We’ve researched the elevators in Arrowwood pretty well and have solid data to work with. Notice in the short span of time between the then photographs that one of the buildings has vanished. Two others fell shortly after the 1998 capture and the other lasted over a decade longer. That leaves one present day.

Presenting a brief history for your enjoyment…

Furthest to the the east (far side first comparison, close side in the other) is the yellow elevator which dates from the mid-1920s. So it’s from early in Arrowwood’s history. It formerly belonged to Parish and Heimbecker, a small but long time player (founded 1909) in the industry and wears their colours. This became the second last grain elevator standing in Arrowwood and did not get demolished until a few years before our 2015 visit. For the last decade or so it was privately owned and used by a local farmer to store grain prior to it going to market.

A cut out Spider-Man could be seen scaling its walls at one time but we never noticed it on any of our many visits to town. That requires paying attention and not daydreaming! It’s a former Alberta Wheat Pool facility, earlier Federal Grain, earlier still Alberta Pacific Grain and acquired by P&H in the 1980s.

The white elevator once belonged to United Grain Growers, but the company closed it in the 1970s. We don’t know the lineage much afterwards but suspect it got sold for private grain storage at some point. That’s a common outcome but in any history papers the last mention of it is the early 1980s.

United Grain Growers, or UGG, was one of the larger grain handling firms around and their elevators could be found all over the prairie provinces. Founded in the 1910s, they merged with some rivals in the early 2000s and are no more.

The Alberta Wheat Pool owned the smallest elevator and inherited it from a small operator in the late 1920s. From the 1970s forward, they used it for bulk fertilizer storage and we believe it stood empty for many years by the time the late 1990s rolled around. Another Alberta Wheat Pool facility (built late 1920s) is seen beside and they owned the building since new.

It’s not all that uncommon, by the way, for a grain firm to have multiple elevators at any one loading point. It might be due to mergers and consolidations or to handle increased demand.

The “Pool” was traditionally the dominate grain firm in Alberta and one of the largest in all Canada. Founded in the 1920s, they merged with a number of former rivals throughout the late 1990s and into the 2000s. United Grain Growers mentioned earlier got added to fold in 2001 but there were other suitors too. The last couple years they operated, the Pool elevators in Arrowwood would have functioned under the Argricore names, the Alberta Wheat Pool’s first post merger incarnation.

There used to be a two other elevators in Arrowwood, built in the 1920s, but removed after only a decade or two. One belonged to Federal Grain and the other had connections to Searle Grain. Both were noteworthy firms of the time.

The lone elevator seen in Arrowwood today is also the newest and stand stands where the pair mentioned above once did. It’s from the late 1970s and likely survived thanks to it being relatively modern. While larger than its once neighbours, all of which were a fair bit older, you’ll notice that it in many ways they all appear similar.

Grain elevator designs were remarkably long lived (early 1900s to the late 1980s!) and remained fairly constant over those years. No matter when built, they all shared similar wood cribbed construction, functionally were much the same and even visually looked alike. Later ones were often bigger but still not all that different.

Today’s grain elevator are ginormous concrete and steel affairs (aka grain terminals). The closest one to Arrowwood is some distance way across the Bow River and in the town of Gleichen, but can still be seen from that distance. It’s big! There used to be about seventeen hundred old style wood grain elevators in Alberta and now there’s something under two hundred left. Most were torn down in the late 1990s/early 2000s period and during the great purge.

Of those left, the vast majority, like the one here, were purchased by farmers to be used for grain storage. They’re perfect for this and often came cheap. A few outlying wood elevators are still used by commercial grain firms, some have been converted into museums and a number were simply abandoned. Every year, a couple fall. Most remain where built and that’s often along some abandoned railway line. The elevators closed and railway lines pulled up wholesale…now both are mostly memory.

Arrowwood’s last was built for the Alberta Wheat Pool and still adorned in their old company colours. Each firm had a unique paint scheme and this became a way for them to stand out from the competition.

The railway arrived in Arrowwood in the mid-1920s (as the “Lomond Subdivision”) and by the early 2000s had been pulled up. A nearby section to the west, built in 1930, was retained for surplus car storage and today is used by Aspen Crossing tour trains. The track here looks in fine shape in the 1990s image but little used at that time. This author drove oil-field truck back then and passed these very elevators frequently but never once saw a train on the line. Nor any rail cars on the siding. Nothing! No signs of use at all.

The CPR and competitor Canadian National (and predecessors) long ago built a huge network of grain gathering branch lines, much like this, across the prairies provinces. Most were laid down in the period 1910-1930 and were gone by the early 2000s. They were victims of changing markets, consolidations within the grain industry and no doubt many other factors. So many lines were lost and this no doubt impacted the many towns along the various lines, much like Arrowwood.

We actively invite our readers to send in old photos to be used in a then and now post like this. Images can show a street scene, some building, grains elevators like this, or whatever. We’ll then revisit the location, shoot a similarly composed image and then write about it on BIGDoer.com. You’ll get credit too and it’ll be fun! Photos must be your copyright or in the public domain. Contact us if unsure.

This piece is an update of an earlier one from 2015 and using original photos but with more current information.

Know more (new tabs): Arrowwood Alberta Grain Elevators.

They’re saying…

”The subject matter is very interesting….thanks for sharing these historic and abandoned places!” Alex Hunter.

More like this…
Looking Down on Wayne Alberta.
Grain Elevators at Carbon Alberta.
Wrentham Alberta 25 Years Apart.

If you wish more information on what’s seen here, don’t hesitate to: contact us!

Date of Adventure: 1997 (us), 1998 (Tom) and 2015 (us again).
Location(s): Arrowwood, Alberta.
Article references and thanks: Furrows of time – a history of Arrowwood, CPR Trackside Guides, Geoffrey Lester Author/Cartographer and Tom for use of his then photo.

The Grain Elevators of Arrowwood Alberta, 1997 and 2015.

From a different angle in 1998 and 2015.

The last one left. Old telegraph crossbuck is now a fence.

We’ve found new friends.