Carlisle-based photographer Mark True was in town last weekend to take fresh photographs of Chariton's vintage G.J. Stewart & Son Elevator for an upcoming exhibit and, while he was about it, stopped at the museum to lend us a hand with a couple of social media issues (thanks, Mark!).
He asked if I knew the history of the elevator and I did --- but didn't recall several of the details offhand. Thought sure I'd written them down --- in a previous post here. But hadn't.
So now that I've rounded the information up again, here's a post devoted to this photogenic but endangered structure, similar to hundreds that dotted the Iowa landscape during the late 19th and well into the 20th centuries.
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The short answer to the question, "when it was built?" is the fall of 1914. The lean-to wing to the south was added during the spring of 1915 and a smaller, similar addition was made to the north at a later date. In its time, this was Chariton's finest.
This is the second elevator on the site. The first actually was built a block north, most likely during the late 1870s, on the site now occupied by the C.B.&Q. Freight House, beautifully recycled as an events venue.
The builder of that elevator was Chariton entrepreneur Smith H. Mallory, who operated it as the Chariton Elevator into the 1890s. Mallory leased the building and grounds to George J. Stewart & Son during 1895; that firm improved it and operated it on the Freight House site until 1903.
Mallory died during March of 1903 and later that year his estate sold the ground under the elevator to the railroad as site for a new freight depot and sold the elevator building itself to the Stewart firm, which hoisted it onto logs and rolled it a block south to a then-vacant lot just north of the Johnson Bros. foundry and machine shop.
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On Saturday evening, Aug. 22, 1914, an explosion probably related to acetylene gas used in the welding process rocked the Johnson brothers' operation and set it afire. The fire spread quickly to the Stewart Elevator, just to the north, and to the Hooper Produce House, located in a frame building to the south.
The McCollough Livery Barn across North 11th Street to the east caught fire, but flames were extinguished by firefighters. The brick walls of the Donnelson & Threlkeld Wagon Bolster Factory, just south of the Hooper building, stopped the flames there.
Old Betsy was hauled to the base of the C.B.&Q. elevated tank, filled with water pumped from Crystal Lake, and that water source prevented the fire from causing more damage than it did, but the elevator, the Johnson plant and the produce company were total losses.
This annotated 1913 Sanborn Fire Insurance map shows how the buildings were arranged along North 11th Street before the fire broke out. Note that the wagon bolster factor is mislabeled and the frame Hooper building is not shown at all.
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After the fire, Stewart & Son regrouped quickly and rebuilt the main part of the elevator you see today on the site of the old. David Johnson bought the McCollough Livery Barn and moved his business there, founding what today is Johnson Machine Works.
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Three generations of the Stewart family owned and operated the elevator and allied businesses --- George J. Stewart (1840-1927), Harry B. Stewart (1867-1938) and Clayton B. Stewart (1898-1956).
During October of 1944, Clayton Stewart sold the elevator to Dannen Mills, based in St. Joseph, Missouri.
Dannen operated the elevator for 20 years --- until 1964, when it was sold to the Farmers Union Cooperative Marketing Association and the Chariton Farmers Cooperative Association was organized to own and operate it.
Although unused for many years, the structure still is owned by what now is United Farmers Cooperative.
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