Grain Elevator 3
Grain Elevator 3 : History: It was both necessity and the prospect of making a lot of money that gave birth to the steam-powered grain elevator in Buffalo, New York, in 1843. Ever since the construction of the Erie Canal in 1825, Buffalo had enjoyed a unique position in American geography. It stood at the intersection of two great all-water routes: one extending from New York Harbor, up the Hudson River, to Albany and, beyond it, the Port of Buffalo; the other constituted by the Great Lakes, which could theoretically take boaters in any direction they wished to go (north to Canada, west to Michigan or Wisconsin, south to Toledo and Cleveland, or east to the Atlantic Ocean). All through the 1830s, Buffalo benefited tremendously from its position. In particular, it was the recipient of most of the increasing quantities of grain (mostly wheat) that was being grown on farms in Ohio and Indiana, and shipped on Lake Erie for transshipment to the Erie Canal. If Buffalo hadn't been there, or when things got backed up there, that grain would have been loaded onto boats at Cincinnati and shipped down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. By 1842, it was clear that Buffalo's port facilities weren't keeping up. They still relied upon techniques that had been in use since the European Middle Ages: work teams of stevedores would use block and tackles and their own backs to unload or load each and every sack of grain that had been stored or was to be stored in the boat's hull. It would take several days, sometimes even a week, to service a single grain-laden boat. Grain shipments were going down the Mississippi River, not over the Great Lakes/Erie Canal system
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