Reprinted from GRAIN JOURNAL March/April 2020 Issue
by Barbara Krupp-Selyem
The Vona Equity Elevator was built in 1915 along the Chicago Rock Island Railroad (now the Kyle Railroad), in Kit Carson County, CO. It is a small 11,000-bushel, metal-sided, frame structure typical of others built in the Central and Southern Plains during that era.
A line shaft from a single cylinder engine powered the wood leg. Horizontal wood bands placed every four feet vertically secured the perimeter. The bins were interlaced with a maze of tie rods extending through the bands to provide support. Originally it was a farmers’ elevator, but it has changed ownership several times since it first opened more than 100 years ago.
The events following the 1929 stock market crash dramatically altered the history of Kit Carson County. Many families, spurred by the Depression, the dust storms of the ‘30s, Ku Klux Klan activities, and the possibilities of government loans elsewhere, relocated to other areas.
Changing Hands
With little grain available, the elevator was closed for a period during the 1930s, and by 1940, many of the families involved with organizing the farmers’ cooperative at Vona had moved away. Hal McDougal of Colby, KS bought the elevator in 1940, and for the next four years, it was McDougal Grain Co.
In 1944, J. W. Borders, who owned the Snell Grain Elevator of Vona, bought out McDougal, and the elevator became part of the vBorders’ family business that would eventually include facilities at Hugo, Flagler, Arriba, Stratton, and Genoa, CO.
After World War II, farmers from Kansas started moving to the area around Vona, and agriculture in the region began to recover. Merle Ford (now deceased), who had been Vona’s postmaster and whose grandfather helped organize the original farmers coop, aptly described the events of that time, “Before the war, farmers used teams of horses; afterward they used tractors.”
Though J. W. Borders and his son, Floyd, who later managed Snell Grain, are both deceased, some people in Vona still could recall the Borders era. Merle Ford, for example, remembered billiard games between Floyd and Hal McDougal. Tom and Nadine Burian, who owned the Oasis Service across the street from the elevator, remembered helping to erect two 20,000-bushel steel bins in 1949.
They also remembered the 1973 fire that destroyed the west elevator (Borders’ first Vona facility). Both Merle and Tom could list the names of every Snell Grain manager – A. W. “Sandy” Morgan, Max Deakin, Joe Doughty, and Leo Gurley.
Gurley managed the elevator for the Borders from 1961 to 1965, when the Borders family sold it to Smoot Grain; then he continued to manage for Smoot until 1979. In those days, managing an elevator was commonly a family job. Leo’s wife, Marjorie, worked side by side with her husband. She didn’t have a title and wasn’t paid much, but in her own words, “I did what needed to be done.” She recalled keeping the books, weighing trucks, and issuing scale tickets, as well as loading and unloading salt, lump coal, 50-pound sacks of chicken feed, and rolls of baling wire.
The Gurleys had six children; five worked at the elevator at one time or another doing odd jobs. According to Don, one of their sons, “Sometimes we were paid a little, and sometimes our pay was the sour grain we cleaned from the pit. We fed this to our hogs, which we ultimately sold for spending money and money for cars. Our favorite memories are of the social times, especially during harvest, when farmer friends brought their grain to the elevator.”
In 1979, Smoot Grain, by then a division of ADM, sold the old elevator to Charlie Schulte and his father, Raymond. Charlie managed the operation that included several large steel bins built at Vona and another facility at Bethune, CO as the Bethune-Vona Grain Co. It was once again a family business. Raymond and Charlie’s brothers farmed in the area and delivered their grain to Charlie at the elevator. From time to time, Charlie’s wife, Lois, worked there too, as did their teenage sons.
The Schultes quit using the 1915 wood house in 1989 as the drive shed was just too small for more modern grain trucks. When interviewed in 2000, Lois lamented, “The old elevator is in such good shape that we hate to tear it down.” She and Charlie wanted to donate it to a museum but were unsuccessful.
Still in Operation
The current owner, Tempel Grain Co., has the same perspective. Kelly Spitzer and her father, George Tempel (now deceased), bought the Vona elevator in 2006 or 2007 for the steel bin storage. They have never used the wood house.
Kelly says, “It would never pass OSHA inspection. The railroad (still the Kyle) says the tin blows off and lands on the tracks. It is a liability. However, we don’t want to tear it down either. We would like for the community to keep it, and we hope the funds might be available through a grant to replace the tin.”
Grain elevator operations have changed a lot since the Vona Equity Elevator was built in 1915. Today it is possible for a farmer to deliver his grain to an elevator and leave with his scale ticket, having had no face-to-face contact with any elevator employee. This may be more efficient and cost-effective, but many in Vona and other rural communities who have experienced the congeniality of the small town elevator, would argue that it is not a better way.
Barb and Bruce Selyem are directors of the Country Grain Elevator Historical Society. Contact the society at 406-581-1076; email: bselyem@cgehs.org.
