The Leduc Grain Elevator
5209 47th Street, Leduc, Alberta
Constructed: 1978
Designation: Provincial Historic Resource
Leduc’s grain elevator was the handiwork of the Alberta Wheat Pool. A 1920s outgrowth of the United Farmers of Alberta, the Wheat Pool existed to “break the grip of the large grain companies [...] by pooling the commodity.” The co-operative’s chief attraction was that “the grain of the members could be marketed directly without any entrepreneurial siphoning off of profits.”
It was an attractive venture for Alberta’s beleaguered farmers. By 1930 half of all the province’s grain went through Alberta Wheat Pool facilities. Elevators sprouted up around the province to support their operations. Even as late as the 1970s, construction on these ‘prairie sentinels’ continued, although their numbers became fewer and fewer. Leduc’s, constructed in 1978, would be one of the last of these traditional, wood-construction grain elevators built in Alberta.
In time, however, the decline of rail transport, coupled with newer, quicker, and less prone to spontaneously combusting methods of grain storage saw “the number of wood frame elevators [begin] to shrink, and, by the end of the century, all grain companies were consolidating their intake activities by erecting huge concrete storage facilities with hydraulic pressure used to elevate and distribute the grain.”
One-by-one, Alberta’s old sentinels fell. It was the community’s will alone that saved Leduc’s. $160,000 in maintenance and restoration costs, a “tireless three-year fight,” and the Alberta Legacy Development Society’s continued advocacy secured its fate. A Provincial Historic Resource designation was granted in May 2003, ensuring the elevator’s protection for generations to come.
“It tells us that the Alberta government is with us and supports us with what we’re trying to do,” Bob Caine, then-chairman of A.L.D.S., said of the designation. “The grain elevator is an important part of our pioneer heritage… We feel great happiness that we have it.”
Image Gallery:
Sources:
“Alberta Wheat Pool Grain Elevator Site Complex,” Alberta Register of Historic Places, accessed March 24, 2021, https://hermis.alberta.ca/ARHP/Details.aspx?DeptID=1&ObjectID=4665-0818.
Renata D’Aliesio, “Leduc Elevator Scores a Landmark Win: Residents Rescue Part of Pioneer Heritage,” Edmonton Journal, February 19, 2003.
Kelly Cryderman, “Piece of the Past Granted Elevated Status,” Edmonton Journal, May 16, 2003.
Don Reston, “Life & Times: Entrepreneur Bob Caine Was a Keen Conservationist of Prairie Elevators,” Edmonton Journal, October 16, 2007.
