The Val Marie Elevator: A Living Heritage Project

DELIVERING WHE AT TO THE VAL MARIE ELEVATOR Jack Gunter hen I was seven or eight years old, I remember delivering wheat to the Val Marie elevator with my dad with a team or horses on a high-wheeled wagon. The tail gate was made in two pieces – the bottom part was about ten inches high with a hinge in the middle and a lever that locked across the back. When you got to the elevator, you could remove this part of the tail gate to let the wheat out. The wagon box held sixty bushels of wheat.

Some farmers had what they called a tank wagon that held ninety bushels of wheat.

We lived in the Hillandale district – fifteen miles from the elevator – so my dad would get up early in the morning and go to the barn with the lantern to feed and harness his horses. It was usually fall when he was hauling wheat and the days would be short. Dad would have to have the wheat on the wagon the night before.

Some wagons had a spring seat on top of the box, but my dad’s had a plank across the top of the box. You sat on that with your feet hanging in front of the box. The horses could walk four miles in an hour with a load, so it would take us three and three-quarter hours to reach the elevator.

I remember one day we were on the flat about two miles from town. There was a big farmer that lived about five miles from town and he had a big team of well-fed horses and a big tank wagon with ninety bushels of wheat on it. He caught up to us, his horses were trotting at a brisk pace. He pulled out, passed us, and went right on to the elevator. My dad said that he would probably make several trips to the elevator that day.

When we reached the elevator, the horses would drive right up the ramp and over the scale so that the wagon was on the scale but the horses were not.

There was a place to put the front wheels of the wagon. After the wagon was weighed, there was a part that would come up to keep the wheels from rolling off as the hoist lifted the front wheels of the wagon up with cables run by the engine that popped a tune in a shed beside the elevator. Then the bottom part of the tail gate of the wagon was removed and the wheat was let out. It