When the Horizon Changes: Raymore’s Last Elevator

There is a particular kind of loss that arrives not with a single dramatic event but with the slow disappearance of things that once defined a place—the landmarks that told you where you were, the structures that carried the memory of generations within their weathered walls. In Raymore, Saskatchewan, that loss is approaching in the form of a grain elevator, the last of its kind in the small town about 115 kilometers north of Regina, and the farmer who owns it is doing everything he can to keep it standing.

Duane Kirstein bought the elevator in the early 2000s with two other farmers, part of a small group that wanted to preserve a piece of prairie history and, at the time, found practical use in its storage capacity . The elevator, built in the 1960s, had served local farmers for decades before being retired from service in 2006 . It holds between 180,000 and 200,000 bushels of grain, a substantial structure that Kirstein and his partners spent years maintaining—redoing the roofing, spending nearly $50,000 on repainting part of the structure .

But time and logistics have caught up with the operation. Kirstein’s farm has shrunk to just him and his son, and the hour-long round trip to town to dump grain has become impractical. He built new bins on his own property this year, and the old elevator, which cannot dry tougher grain, no longer fits the needs of a modern operation . “It’s just logistics, and it’s just time to move on,” he said .

The problem is what to do with the building. It sits on leased Canadian National Railway property, which means that if Kirstein cannot find a buyer or someone to take it, he will have to pay for its demolition . He has offered it to the town, which declined. He has spoken with a few commercial parties. And he has said he would be willing to donate it to a historical society that might want to preserve it .

For Dianne Eckel, secretary treasurer of the Raymore Pioneer Museum, the elevator represents something irreplaceable. “It’ll be sad to see it go because then that’ll be all of them gone,” she said . She recalled the first elevator built in Raymore in 1923, torn down in 1962 to make way for the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool structure that still stands today—a building that cost $55,633 and was equipped with electric power, an electric hoist, and a 20-ton scale . Her father and her husband were farmers who used the elevator, and she remembers the way the horizon looked different when other towns lost theirs. “You come over the hill and it’s just another town,” she said .

Across Saskatchewan, wooden grain elevators are disappearing. About 3,000 existed in the 1950s; today, roughly 280 remain, with five to ten lost each year to fire, wind, or demolition . For the people of Raymore, the question is whether theirs will be next. Kirstein is still hoping for a buyer, or a historical society, or some other solution. The alternative is a hole in the skyline where a landmark used to be.

AI Image Disclaimer: The visuals in this article were generated using artificial intelligence for illustrative purposes only and do not depict the actual elevator or individuals described.

Sources: CBC News