The elevator, built in 1948, was constructed in two separate parts. The elevator itself is the highest part of the structure and contains all its mechanics. The Annex, built in 1958, (on the northeast side of the building) is shorter and was used as grain bin storage area.

Manitoba Pool built the elevator at a time when Federal Grain had 2 other elevators in Warren both of which were torn town by 1960 or so. At one time the elevator used to handle about a million bushels of grain a year and the catchment area went all the way to Gypsumville. People had to haul their grain up to 100 miles and there were lineups of a dozen or more trucks waiting to unload. The Warren elevator was so busy, an extra siding was even put in to store more rail cars.

The elevator manager used to work very long hours and it took 2.5 to 3 hours to load a railcar. Originally powered by a Ruston Hornsby diesel engine, the elevator was eventually changed over to electricity. Farmers also used to bring their grain to the elevator to be “cleaned” and they would use their own grain for seed. In comparison, the new Paterson elevator can load a car in about 7 minutes.

Ed feels the closure of the elevator was planned by the grain company. Truckers used to charge the farmer “waiting time”. People would get tired of waiting and then they would go to another community (like Stonewall) to dump their grain. If the Warren elevator was left full of grain, you can imagine what happened over time.

According to Ed when they took the heavy rails out he tried to convince the rail line that it would be better to build 200 miles of additional line to connect the Interlake to Churchill. The trains have to go all the way west to Canora Saskatchewan (not Kenora Ontario)and then backtrack through Swan River and Gillam in order to get to Hudson Bay and Churchill. That is why if they had built about two hundred miles of new line from Gypsumville to Ponton we could have connected to the Gillam/Hudson Bay line in Manitoba and had about a nine hundred mile shorter run to Churchill.

They could have followed the gravel ridges and stayed close to the aggregate they needed to build the line. But, CN did not want Omnitrax to have direct access to Winnipeg, so the rails were torn up, refurbished and sold to another country. Ed thinks, if today Winnipeg was connected directly to Churchill and within 30 hours driving time of 80 million people, trains would be going through our area daily.

 When Ed Peltz and other local farmers heard that the elevator might be closing they told a “story” that caught the imaginations of people (and their ideas seem to have stuck in the community), it could be purchased by locals and turned into an attraction.

 Agricore was the last operator of the grain elevator in Warren and it was decommissioned officially in 1999 but continued to sell chemical/fertilizer off the site until about 2002. When the elevator was put onto the demolition list, the West Interlake Trading Company and the community worked to preserve it and make it the permanent home for the WITC. In 2003 a deal was struck with Agricore to save the elevator.

click here to go to History of the West Interlake Trading Company

click here to to to History of Warren (Tidbits)

Grain_Elevator_in_Winter