The Western Grain Elevators are a familiar part of the Westfort skyline.
Since 1913 the brick and concrete monuments to the city’s industrial past have stood on the northern bank of the Kaministiqua River. And while it’s the only one from more than a dozen that used to provide work for hundreds of men on the city’s south side still running, it houses equipment that has stood the test of time.
A look inside the five-storey building shows massive scales from the 1890s still in use to this day. Giant cogs with wooden teeth that once ran the dryer look as though they were carved yesterday. And while the horse doors in the all-brick workhouse haven’t been used since coal was phased out in favour of an electric motor, the masonry is still there. Until the 80s, a rope more than a mile long ran through the structure to run the operation.
Workers still wheel the chutes by hand when ships come upriver, which isn’t as often as it once was since the dredging stopped. But it’s survived thanks to specialty crops.
Just thinking about it makes Nancy Perozzo, whose father was an inspector near the elevator, smile.
“I am surprised by the number of people who are as whacky as I am about elevators,” the project coordinator for Friends of Grain Elevators said.
The friends have a grand vision to one day have a heritage trail that connects the city’s grain history along the waterfront. Until then they’ve started small, thanks to Western Grain owner Maurice Mailhot. He’s agreed to let the group apply so that they century-old elevator can become a national historic site, which would be the only grain elevator in Canada to have that distinction.
“If Maurice was not involved it would be a far more difficult dream to accomplish,” Perozzo said.
The group applied for the designation in March. Perozzo said the process will take at least a year.
