General Mills Elevators S & X (Superior, Wisconsin) | dock (maritime), grain elevator / grain silos

 dock (maritime), grain elevator / grain silos

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One of three shiploading grain terminals in Superior, WI. It was built by the Great Northern Railroad and the facility has stayed in their hands through that company's consolidation into the Burlington Northern and then the BNSF Railways. BNSF still appears to own the facility today, but for the last few decades they've leased it or at least turned over day-to-day management to General Mills.

Elevator S is the tallest and oldest part of the complex. Primarily of steel construction, it opened in 1900 and at that time was likely one of if not the largest structure of its kind in the world. Immediately south of Elevator S were two somewhat smaller (but still massive for their time) wooden grain elevators. The more northerly of the two wooden elevators seems to have either burned or been demolished during the early years of the 20th Century. The other, Elevator X, exploded and burnt during the mid 1940s in what was initially thought to be an act of wartime sabotage (that turned out not to be the case.) Elevator X was replaced by a concrete structure of the same name which began operation in 1947.

A series of three concrete annexes were added adjacent to Elevator S between the 1900s - 1930s, bringing the total storage capacity of the complex up to around 12,000,000 bushels of grain (a bushel is a measure of volume, not weight.) Elevator S and its annexes stand adjacent to the harbor at the northern end of the property. Elevator X is further to the south and is landlocked. Elevator S loads ships via 3 long airslide chutes which were added during the early 1970s to serve large modern ships that could not be loaded by the multitude of shorter and lower-mounted chutes installed there originally. During the 1980s a receiving hopper was added to Elevator S to receive grain delivered by self-unloading bulk freighters.

For most of the terminal's history the dock structure alongside Elevator S was a massive timber trestle that likely dated to the slip's original 1880s excavation and the old wooden elevator originally built in Elevator S's footprint. Sections of the aging and collapsing structure were demolished during 2005 to make way for a series of small steel and concrete pier sections connected by a catwalk that allow freighters a more solid tie up.

The S & X terminal complex was busy loading ships with grain for most of the 20th century. Activity likely peaked during the boom grain export years of the 1970s. By the late 1980s - early '90s that activity at this terminal had dropped to nearly nothing, and it was often one of Duluth-Superior's least busy grain facilities. The receiving hopper fitted at Elevator S allowed the occasional self-unloading lake freighter to deliver cargoes like Canadian oats which were stored here and eventually sent south and east by rail for final consumption. Grain exports through Duluth-Superior experienced their last major peak from 1998 - 2000. For those few years this terminal again saw a lot of activity loading export grain, either directly aboard oceangoing vessels or onto Canadian lake freighters which deliver the grain to the overseas transshipment elevators on the lower St. Lawrence. During the early 2000s this terminal had a considerable share in the new business of exporting sugar beet pulp pellets from the Red River Valley to livestock operations around the world, although in the last few years that flow of cargo has mostly gone over to General Mills' Elevator A in Duluth.

Since 2003 grain export business from Duluth-Superior has plummeted dramatically and has dwindled to nothing at several once-busy facilities. General Mills S & X was never as busy a place as some of others, but unlike them it has remained steadily active. Since the early 2000s it has been the port's primary terminal for loading spring wheat onto U.S.-flagged lake freighters for delivery to General Mills' flour mill at Buffalo, NY. During many of the recent slow years for grain at Duluth-Superior this relatively stable flow has made S & X the second-busiest grain terminal in the port.