Implements and Machines

Grain Elevator

Also Known As Grain terminal
Threshing and Post-Harvest Processing Implements

The tall storehouse that lifts, stockpiles and pours grain in bulk, the building that turned harvests into a flowing commodity. The merchant Joseph Dart and engineer Robert Dunbar built the first steam-powered elevator in Buffalo, New York, operational on the first of June 1843, and it unloaded ships roughly seven times faster than the sack-and-shoulder work it replaced. Bulk handling made the modern grain trade possible, and the elevator became the skyline of every prairie town that shipped wheat.

Facts
Introduced Year
1843 1
The Dart elevator in Buffalo became operational on 1 June 1843; the invention is dated 1842.
Origin
Buffalo entrepreneur Joseph Dart, with Scottish mechanical engineer Robert Dunbar, built the first steam-powered grain elevator in America on the Buffalo River, applying Oliver Evans steam-milling principles to a mechanized marine leg that scooped grain from ship holds; it opened in June 1843. 2
Classification
Power Source
Steam 1
Connections

Associated With

grain elevators and silos are paired grain-storage and handling structures, the elevator moving grain into and out of silo storage

Powered By

Steam Engine, Concepts
Sources
1. Grain Elevator (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Lead section; Dart and Dunbar history
    A grain elevator or grain terminal is a facility designed to stockpile or store grain.
  • lead description or Wikipedia lead (power-source)
    The merchant Joseph Dart and engineer Robert Dunbar built the first steam-powered elevator in Buffalo, New York, operational on the first of June 1843, and it unloaded ships roughly seven times faster than the sack-and-shoulder work it replaced.
View the Source
2. Joseph Dart (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationGrain elevator section
Quote, Grain elevator section
Alongside Scottish mechanical engineer Robert Dunbar, Dart oversaw construction of a steam-powered grain elevator, the first in America.
View the Source
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