It would often take a farmer in western Oklahoma up to a week to deliver their grain to market using a wagon and a team of horses traveling along the bumpy, rutted dirt roads. Farmers would team up and create wagon trains of grain so they could help each other with steep hills or muddy river crossings. To alleviate this problem, enterprising businessmen and local farmers began building grain elevators in their local communities so the harvest could be stored locally until it could be hauled to the railroads for sale. In 1898, an even larger crop of 17.4 million bushels further spurred the construction of ele- vators across western Oklahoma. By 1907 an es- timated 250 grain elevators were in operation in the state. That number peaked to over 500 eleva- tors by 1950. Since that time, the number of ele- vators has declined because of storage and freight effi ciency, to around 295 in the late 1990s. Brandon Schroeder, co-owner of Schroeder
Grain Company in El Reno, Okla., is a fourth-gen- eration elevator operator. “My great-grandfather came to the El Reno area to run a wooden elevator in 1935. My grand- father built our current concrete elevator in 1954, and my father operated it for many years. I played here as a toddler and have worked here since I was old enough to work,” he said. The Schroeder Grain Company concrete eleva- tor still dominates the El Reno skyline.
How A Grain Elevator Works
Grain such as wheat, soybeans and canola start their trip to market in a combine—a large tractor that harvests the grain in the fi eld, separates the plant stalks and leaves from the grain, and stores
Banner Co-op east of El Reno, Okla., is owned by a local farmer’s grain cooperative and functions in a similar fashion as electric cooperatives, based in the cooperative business model.
the grain in a large hopper. Trucks pull up next to the combine and the grain is moved via an auger into a trailer attached to the truck. These trucks then deliver the grain to a local elevator. Time is critical during harvest, so multiple trucks may service a single combine, hauling the grain from the fi eld to a nearby elevator. When fi rst pulling into the elevator, the trucker drives onto a set of massive scales. Here the truck, trailer and grain are weighed. A grain probe is used to extract various samples from different spots in the trailer. These samples are tested for
quality, humidity, temperature and contamina- tion—weeds, chaff and leaves left over from the harvest process. “We used to test grain by hand, but now we have a machine that automates the process,” said Dave Guthrie, general manager of Minco Elevator and Supply and an Oklahoma Electric Cooperative member.
Once the grain has been rated for quality, the
truck pulls off the scales and over to a “pit” near the elevator. The truck dumps its load into the pit, where an auger moves the grain vertically to the top of the elevator. A mechanical “distribu- tor” is used to route the grain to the correct stor- age bin, depending on the needs of the grain elevator operator. This distributor is sometimes housed in what is known as a “head house”—the structure at the top of many concrete elevators that looks like a house. On older elevators, an operator must climb stairs or ride an elevator to the head house and manually move the distribu- tor so it is pointing to the correct storage bin. On newer elevators this is done either manually from the ground or via computer control. Once the grain is sold, a truck pulls into the elevator and an operator opens a valve on the appropriate bin. Gravity moves the grain from the elevator to the truck. In some cases the grain is stored at ground level so a “sweep auger” is used to gather up the grain from the fl oor of the bin and load it onto the truck. The truck then hauls the grain to a distribution point. “We mostly deal in soybeans,” Guthrie ex- plained. “Most of our soybeans are sold to Braum’s Dairy to feed the cows. This year we are also shipping soybeans to Tulsa’s Port of Catoosa.”
Grain Elevators in Oklahoma *One elevator represents 50 elevators
By 1907 there were an estimated 250 elevators in Oklahoma. By 1919 there were an estimated 866 elevators in Oklahoma but with a capacity of only 17.5 million bushels statewide. In 2015, the Sooner State has about 250 elevators in operation. Due to drought, in 2014 the state produced 51 million bushels. A typical production year is closer to 110 million bushels.
Grain trucks load and unload above a grain pit next to the elevator. Augers move the grain out of the pit to the head house, where it is then moved along the Texas longhouse to the correct storage bin. When loading grain on a truck, gravity is then used to move the grain out of the storage bin, along a conveyer belt, and back to the truck. Illustration by Matthew Webb
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Data source: Oklahoma State University Small Grains Extension program
1907 1919 2015
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