A Few Minutes in Three Hills

On the road back from somewhere special, the most amazing Hanna Roundhouse (link below), a small detour to take in some old buildings we’ve not looked at for many years. Over there on the west end of Three Hills Alberta, down by the train tracks, two vintage wood grain elevators. On one side, a former Alberta Wheat Pool facility from the 1960s now privately owned. And across the tracks, one that once belonged to a firm called Parrish & Heimbecker that’s been empty and closed up for some time now. It’s a hodgepodge of additions and annexes put in over the years with the core structure dating back almost a century.

There used to many others just like these in Three Hills. Every prairie town had a least some and they almost always stood at the far end of downtown or somewhere close. Most of these are long gone now having been torn down in the great wood grain elevator purge of the 1990s and early 2000s. Today’s elevators are giant towering steel and concrete things generally outside of town – there’s one up the tracks from here for example. That this pair managed to survive could be akin to a small miracle but we can’t help think that their days are numbered, even if the one still sees some use. There’s few wood elevators, outside those in museums, that aren’t threatened or on the endangered list in some way. Not much use for them, sadly. Shoot them while you can.

Canadian National Railway’s Calgary to Edmonton line spits the pair. Crossed our fingers a train would show as we pulled up – us and our pipe dreams – but none did. This stretch of track is not super busy.

And the road calls, and we’re off. Status report: Three Hills still has two wood grain elevators. All is well…for now.

A more detailed study from years back…
Prairie Sentinels – Three Hills Alberta.

That same weekend…
Hanna Roundhouse Revisited.

Short Subjects: reports that for any number of reasons are brief in nature. They might be updates to older articles, previews of posts planned or not yet published, brief snippets of things that don’t fit in anywhere else or subjects that are so obscure that information on them can’t be found. Or sometimes we just ramble on about Lord knows what.

If you need any more information on what we talked about here, by all means contact us!

Date of adventure: April, 2018.
Location: Three Hills, AB.

A brief stop…

Still standing in Three Hills Alberta.

Old grain elevators are on the endangered list.