Grain Elevators of Consort Alberta

Ahead, it’s a piece called Grain Elevators of Consort Alberta and it contains two interesting photos from long ago. It’s Chris here and in the 1990s I worked oilfield “hotshot” trucking. On these travels, I’d pass many interesting places, but always under a time crunch. Stopping or even slowing down were not an option.

It’s the nature of the business and this meant opportunities to explore were limited. Once in a while, however, time worked favourably and with this, the camera would be brought out. It didn’t see much use back then for this reason. You wouldn’t believe the abandoned and historic places that were passed by. Most are gone now and regret that more weren’t photographed on these trips.

Consort is out in the east-central reaches of the province and on this visit had three grain elevators. Four if you count an annex that formerly was a stand alone elevator and for which some unexplained reason only made a minor cameo appearance in the pictures. Just its base is seen. It’s far and above the most significant one here and yet seemingly ignored. Sigh…

All the elevators here were painted in the company colours (blue/green) of the Alberta Wheat Pool, except for the oldest in white. Some soon after received Agricore signs but otherwise remained the same. Agricore became the new name for AWP properties after the firm merged with the Manitoba Pool about a year after these photos were captured.

Not that it matters much in this story, but Agricore later got involved in more mergers and in name vanished as a company. That’s the grain business these days but by the time this happened the elevators in Consort were a distant memory.

Researching old grain elevators can be a frustrating and confusing experience. The buildings would and did often change hands many times. Keeping track of it all can be daunting and labourius. Most were not independent facilities, but rather part of some network and there were many players. A few were big, others small, and due to competition or other factors, individual elevators or groups would change ownership.

You need a scorecard to keep track of it all and even then, there’s rarely full clarity.

Change of ownership sometimes came due to mergers, takeovers, or with the sale of individual sites. Some elevators kept with the same company from beginning to end, or minimally for long periods, whereas others were seemingly traded like hockey cards.

Further complicating matters are timeline gaps and missing, guessed at or contradictory data. With this in mind, we present a fragmented and unsure history of these elevators. This information comes thanks to various history books, dated photos and locals. Updates and such will be forthcoming should new info come to light.

The smallest elevator, the white one and only partly seen in the photos, is one of two that we’re confident about. It’s the oldest and appears in many photos from long ago. It’s said to date from 1912 and originally built for the Alberta Pacific Grain Company. Federal Grain owned Alberta Pacific and in 1967 amalgamated it into its operations. With that, it became a Federal facility and not long after (1972) the firm’s assets in this province were acquired by the Alberta Wheat Pool.

The elevator right beside dates to the mid-1950s and built for the Alberta Wheat Pool. The two were joined sometime, presumably, after the early 1970s but that’s not confirmed. One component of a twinned elevator typically operates as a storage facility to the other and this was a cheap way to increase capacity.

There’s another Pool elevator in the mix and it got moved some fifty clicks here from New Brigden Alberta in the 1980s. The rail line through that community closed then. It dates from 1928 and our instincts tell us it’s the furthest elevator, but again, we can’t say for certain. It has a balloon annex on the far side and it’s a purpose built addition to help increase capacity.

The last elevator could be from 1915, the middle one (we think) and it’s listed as being closed since the 1970s. It lacks company lettering but is still identified as a Pool facility by its colours. If indeed this building, it once belonged to Federal Grain (twice and built for), by subsidiary Alberta Pacific and for a time by Pioneer Grain.

The Alberta Wheat Pool dates from the mid-1920s and for much of its existence the largest grain firm in the province. They had hundreds of elevators and a presence in nearly every town on the Alberta Prairies with rail service. Through mergers and acquisitions, they often ended up owning several elevators in many towns.

Federal Grain began in the late 1920s and came about due to the merger of several smaller firms. They owned Alberta Pacific from the 1940s but didn’t consolidate with its parent firm until a couple of decades later. Alberta Pacific goes back to 1900 and they were a decent-sized grain company.

Federal grew to be quite large and had elevators in all three prairie provinces. They sold out to the three respective Pool organizations (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) in the early 1970s.

Pioneer Grain, mentioned briefly, dates back to the 1910s and is still in business. They’re Richardson Pioneer now. The firm had a modest-sized network of rural grain elevators across the three prairie provinces back in the day, but today operate several large inland terminals. Think of them as grain elevators on steroids and they can often load a full train’s worth of cars in one pass.

At various points in time, there were other grain elevators here, built in the 1910s and owned by some names familiar to this post and others not. Alberta Farmer’s Co-op and United Grain Growers are two of note. These elevators were all gone by the 1970s.

A shed is seen beside the middle elevator and it’s that small building to its left. It could be for bagged fertilizer storage or some such thing and appears to have a railside loading door.

Note the capstan in front of the closest elevator and down there by the tracks. It’s part of a cable system used to move railcars about as they were loaded. Two of the elevators have fall protection systems in place and these functioned as harness tie-in points for those working atop and loading railcars.

The last of these elevators were gone by about 2000-2001 and sort of concurrent with the rail line being pulled up. We’ve seen pictures as recent as 1999 showing some were still standing (less the middle one), but that’s the last photo record we know of.

This rail line was the CPR’s Coronation Subdivision and it arrived at Consort in 1910. Always tied to the grain business it travelled from its namesake town in Alberta and on to Kerrobert Saskatchewan. When grain prices were high, it could be a busy stretch, but otherwise short trains and leisurely schedules were the norm.

In later years the line proved marginal and in the early 1990s sold to a short-line company. That’s the Central Western Railway based out of Stettler Alberta and even with lower operating costs, they could not make a go of it for long. They abandoned it in bits and pieces in the years to follow.

Consort saw trains into the late 1990s at least but the exact date of the last run seemingly not recorded. We’ve seen a photo from the summer of 1997 showing grain hoppers being pulled from the elevator siding and another from 1999 with tank cars stored there. Some reports contradict this and state the line closed in 1996, but based on photo evidence that must be in error.

The tracks remained in place for several years after. In 2000-2002 we’re told. The rails looked unused on this visit but service by that point was spotty and it may have been a while since the last train passed.

It’s sad that none of these elevators still stand, but still, we’re please they made it into these photos. It’s too bad the oldest elevator got mostly missed, but back then we didn’t document these things as today. They were just a mild curiosity and not the passion they are now.

Also…even with the writing plainly on the wall, we were in full denial and thought these and the railways which served them would be around forever. We’ll come back and photograph them later…right? Silly us.

A small town loses a part of its soul when the elevators are demolished and the railway line pulled up. It’s typically a death blow, but always a big hit.

These photos were shot as 35mm prints and the exact date they were captured has been forgotten. Any notes that accompanied them are long gone and at best we can only guess.

Know more: (new tab): Grain Elevators Consort Alberta.

They’re saying…

“I enjoy history so really enjoy the pictures and backstories.” Ted Swanson.

More grain elevators…
Grain Elevators of Arrowwood Alberta (x2).
Prairie Sentinels: Bulwark Alberta.
Bashaw Processors.
Skiff Alberta ex-Parrish & Heimbecker.

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Date of adventure: Late fall 1997 or early spring 1998.
Location: Consort, Alberta.
Article references and thanks: Jim Pearson (RIP), author of the Vanishing Sentinels book series, the book – Sunny Side of the Neutrals, Stories of Consort and District, locals we chatted with and various photos from the 1910s-1990s period.

In Consort Alberta in the late 1990s.

They were gone and the rails pulled up a few years later.