Most prairie towns have just two structures over which you cannot bounce a basket ball: the water tower and the grain elevator. While the water tower is an essential component of small town life, the elevator is much more interesting - and more important to the community's economic well being.

From the cupolas of these sentinels of the prairie, one's gaze draws in mile upon mile of fertile farmland - the very reason for their existence. Ribbons of steel and strips of asphalt lead away from their doors, providing the avenues upon which their stored food grains move out into the hungry nation and globe that will consume them and be sustained. Borne out of the pioneer farmer's need for a nearby outlet for his modest crops, the elevators of the Northern Plains have, through the succeeding decades, served as the perennial conduit for the movement of this region's mountains of grain from farm to market.

Tremendous change has occurred since the second half of the 19th century when the first grain elevators plopped themselves down on this prairie - change in farming practices, transportation modes, economies of scale, government involvement, the nature of the marketplace - and in the physical size and workings of the elevators themselves. Yet the country elevator's basic role has not changed. It remains the funnel through which the region's ample bounty flows toward those who have need of it.

Broad-scale settlement and agriculture in the region began in the 1870s and 1880s. The Red River Valley soon developed an international reputation as an important wheat producer - a reputation enhanced by eastern U.S. and European journalists' awed accounts of the area's legendary "bonanza" farms. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, main rail lines and branches were laid across thousands of miles of prairie landscape, serving as the conveyors upon which trainload after trainload of golden Dakota grain traveled to Minneapolis flour mills and Duluth/Superior terminal elevators. As railroads and settlers proliferated across the face of the Valley, elevators sprouted up in location after location - often six to nine miles apart, as that was the approximate distance a farmer with a team of horses pulling a wagon of grain could travel - round trip - during a long day. Most of the early country elevators were "line" facilities: groups of elevators operated by large out-of-state millers and/or commission firms. Later, out of the farmers' desire to have a bigger voice in their economic fate, numerous cooperative elevators were formed.

Because of the very reason for their existence, country elevators inevitably share in the ups and downs of agriculture in general. The depressed land values and low commodity prices of the '20s and '30s, for example, took their toll not only on the farm population, but on elevators as well. Though the numbers of both farmers and elevators continued to decline, the post-World War II years brought growth and relative prosperity for those that remained. Increased farm mechanization, increased yields and increased capacity at the elevator were the trends of the future. As of 1952, for example, there were 936 licensed elevators in North Dakota - half the number of 30 years earlier. But their average storage capacity was 68,000 bushels - more than double that of 1922.

Since then, of course, the trend has continued: fewer but bigger farms and fewer but bigger elevators. As of the mid-1980s, there were about 575 grain elevators in the state of North Dakota; but those 575 possessed an average storage capacity of more than 350,000 bushels. And so it goes as we near the end of the 20th century.

During the early 1900s, a typical small-town Northern Plains elevator probably possessed a tiny gasoline engine, a single leg for elevating grain, a rudimentary weigh scale and enough siding to load out three or four boxcars at most. The elevator office likely would have counted a pot-bellied coal stove, ledger books and fountain pens among its modest furnishings.

Today, a country grain elevator cannot function without electricity. It is wrapped around modern elevating machinery, uses electronic weighing and grading equipment, has siding enough to load out a large contingent of covered hopper cars (often in long unit trains) - and has a thoroughly modern office incorporating computerized accounting systems and instantaneous market information.

As different as they are, however, the country elevators of 1999 are similar to their counterparts of a century ago in at least one respect: They continually seek the internal efficiency and external market environment that will afford them a profit. And, as well, the wise ones continually remind themselves that their own viability, prosperity and future are inextricably linked to the economic fate of those they serve: the farmers of the Northern Plains.

Ag writer Don Lilleboe lives in West Fargo, N.D.
Bruce Selyem lives in Bozeman, Mont. his e-mail address: bselyem@montana.edu

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