Old Globe Elevator Site (Superior, Wisconsin)

 grain elevator / grain silos  Add category

The Globe facility consisted of three wooden grain elevator structures connected by conveyor belts. The first section, the elevator and headhouse where the ship loading berth was located, opened for business in 1887. The two landlocked storage annexes to the south were added within the next few years.

The terminal was in constant operation until the facility shut down in 1988, an impressive feat for a wooden elevator structure, which are severely prone to accidental fire. By 1988 all of the other dozens of wooden elevators in Duluth-Superior had burned or been demolished and replaced with safer, more modern concrete and steel structures. The Globe facility was operated by the Globe Elevator Co. and its successor Peavey Grain for its entire lifespan. When Peavey acquired the modern concrete and steel Chicago & Northwestern / Continental grain facility on Connors Point in 1986, it moved to consolidate all of its local operations there, and the Globe Elevator's fate was sealed.

Peavey's parent company, ConAgra, sold the Globe property to a construction company for demolition in the mid 1990s, but the sturdy old elevators stood quietly for more than a decade. Demolition finally began more than ten years later when a company began salvaging the structures' massive, high-quality timber and other parts and fittings for re-use. Some dismantling of one of the storage annexes began initially, but since then efforts have concentrated on the ship loading elevator/head-house, which has been slowly but surely disappearing for the last few years. The operation responsible for the interesting end to this historic structure has a website, read more at www.wisconsinwoodchuck.net/index.htm .



www.wisconsinwoodchuck.net/index.htm